Toward the Storm
by The Moss Stomper
Summary: The Geostigma rages unchecked. People are growing desperate. Nanaki has travelled Gaia for months, searching for a cure. A promising lead sends him sniffing after a rare materia rumored to have unparalleled curative power. When the trail turns out to be littered with dead bodies, Nanaki winds up working with the unlikeliest of allies: the Turks.
1. The Best-Laid Plans

**A/N** : This is a buddy cop murder mystery/detective story, featuring two reluctant allies: Nanaki and Reno. Expect a bit of action, a bit of angst, occasional philosophical musings and a bunch of awkward conversations as Nanaki struggles to make sense of the human world.

This story isn't a direct sequel to _Unwelcome Guest_ and _The Stranger in Their Midst_ , but it's set in the same timeline (Tess FitzEvan makes a few appearances, wohoo) and builds on events in those two stories. It's not necessary to read them before this one, but this fic does contain spoilers for them.

Rated T for some descriptions of dead bodies, swearing and occasional innuendo.

* * *

 **1\. The Best-Laid Plans**

* * *

The morning dew clung to Nanaki's fur as he bounded through billowing grass. Every green blade was outlined in gold, set alight by the rays of the rising sun. This lushness was a far cry from his native Cosmo Canyon; his senses buzzed with fresh scents and the feel of soft, rich soil beneath his paws, but he would not be distracted. Nanaki was on the hunt.

His quarry was not of flesh and blood, though. He sought a small magical orb: the materia known as Enemy Skill. He had searched for those of its kind for months, and had sniffed out a promising trail at last. Nanaki was on his way to meet the materia collector at the end of that trail. He knew where to find this human – a blue house in the countryside, to the east of a town called Kalm – but it was unwise for one of his kind to show up on the doorstep of a stranger unannounced. And… it was doubly unwise to do so when he had lost his balance.

Nanaki had spent many weeks alone, following a trail tangled with rumor from one continent to another, and the paths he had trodden were dangerous. His feral side had thrived upon the hunt, his animal instincts had sharpened to a keen edge – but at the cost of his reason.

As Nanaki loped on toward the town of Kalm, he recited the after-battle verses his mother had taught him; repetition after repetition, until the words regained their meaning once more. With each rational thought, he recovered another sliver of his balance. By the time he crested a towering ridge and spotted Kalm's stately stone walls on the horizon, his mind was ready at last for an intellectual encounter.

But how ready would the collector be to meet someone like Nanaki? He would have preferred a human liaison when introducing himself to their kind so far from Cosmo Canyon, but he knew no one in Kalm of whom he could ask such a favor. Cloud and Tifa lived in Edge, a fledgling city less than half a day's travel to the south, but he was always away on deliveries and she had her hands full with the bar. The rest of AVALANCHE had scattered far and wide. Each in search of something that might bring meaning into their lives, now that the Meteor crisis was over – or so Nanaki surmised, from where his own wanderlust had led him.

Nanaki could at least try to ease the collector into their eventual face-to-face meeting. He may have lost his balance, but not his way. Enough of his wits remained, he hoped, to make a favorable impression through a phone call.

He padded to a halt and sat back on his haunches. With claws unsheathed, he hooked the string around his neck and maneuvered it over his head; a very human gesture, which had taken him months to master. Attached to the string was a pouch, no larger than his paw. A human thing, made for human contraptions and human hands. Every time he opened it, he had to take care not to tear through the stiff leather with his claws.

Inside was a PHS and a slip of paper with a series of names and numbers. His people had little use for written language, but his grandfather had taught him to read the scribblings of humans. Nanaki was grateful for that, now. The skill had proven its use.

Nanaki nudged the phone with a paw until it lay the right way around in front of him. He was not fond of the device. It had its uses, but relying on a single sense left too much room for error in communication. During his decades in the village he had learned to tease meaning from the pitches and intonations of human speech, but such interpretation did not come naturally to him. He was still too prone to mistakes.

He tapped the numbers into the PHS. Despite his attempts to treat the device with care, several numbers had long since scratched off the buttons. Another human thing, not designed for claws.

His tail swished back and forth as the phone emitted its customary sequence of beeps. His feral side still clamored, urged him to take off, to run until his target was within range of his senses. Nanaki let his eye fall shut and calmed his instincts with a recitation of one of the shorter verses.

The phone's beeping ended with a soft click.

" _Dedrick Excursions._ "

Nanaki opened his eye and double-checked the name on his note.

"Is this… Maudie Dedrick?"

" _Yes?_ "

"My name is Nanaki. I wish to speak to you about materia. I understand you have… an impressive collection." The words formed slowly on his tongue. It had been a while since he used them.

The line was silent a while.

" _Who told you that?_ "

"Reeve Tuesti. I believe you have met."

Another pause. Oh, how Nanaki wished he could see her face and body. These silences told him nothing.

" _What is this about?_ " the woman finally asked.

"I seek an Enemy Skill materia. One that allows the casting of White Wind, if possible. Do you possess… such a thing?"

It was a long shot, as the humans were fond of saying. White Wind may have been one of Gaia's most powerful healing spells, but that meant little when the collected wisdom of the Planet understood nothing of the plague that ravaged it. By now, it was clear that the Geostigma was like no disease the world had ever seen.

Nonetheless, the old knowledge might give the afflicted strength to fight this disease a little longer, while the humans raced to develop new medicines. Used together with those medicines, it might even turn out to be the cure the world had been praying for.

A long shot, indeed. Nanaki was no longer sure it was possible at all, but after two years of desperation, long shots were all that remained.

The woman on the phone spoke again.

" _Nanaki, was it?_ "

"Yes."

" _You're with the WRO?_ "

"Not quite," he admitted. "I am… cooperating with Reeve Tuesti on this matter."

Silence again, followed by a sigh.

" _I might be able to help you. When can you drop by?_ "

"I am on my way to Kalm as we speak. I should arrive tomorrow afternoon."

" _Very well. Goodbye, Mr. Nanaki._ "

"One more thing," Nanaki said before she could hang up. "I am told my appearance... is unusual. When I arrive, do not be alarmed. Please, trust the first impression given by this conversation."

" _…I see._ "

The woman did not sound convinced. Nanaki expected as much, but he had found that a polite warning in advance was better than none. Surprised humans were so unpredictable.

"Thank you. I will see you tomorrow."

Nanaki pawed a button on the phone, ending the call.

* * *

Nanaki was not born on this continent. He had only visited it a few times, and never with the time or inclination to explore it thoroughly. He trotted over one gentle green hill after another, inhaling a landscape's worth of scents that hovered right at the border of recognition, and became less and less certain of his location with each step. The sun's position could only tell him so much. In the canyon of his home, high ground was always within sight; here, the uniformity of the rolling plains was relentless.

As he reached the top of yet another knoll, the monotony was broken by a dark line. It was a paved road, snaking its way along the shallow valleys of the landscape. Nanaki shifted course toward it. Roads had destinations, and destinations had people.

He halted by the side of the road, and pricked his ears and his nose for any hint that might lead him in the right direction. Once again luck was on his side; to his right, where the road curved away behind a hill, a distant warking sound was coming from beyond.

As soon as Nanaki crested the hill, he spotted the source: a bright yellow chocobo, strapped to a wagon. A man was standing by the side of the road, some ten paces in front of the bird. His bottom half was obscured by a thicket of bushes, but it was clear that he was relieving himself.

A murmur drew Nanaki's eye back to the chocobo. A second man, partly hidden by the bird, was soothing it with softly-spoken words. He patted the bird's feathery flank, before tearing off a chunk from the jerky he held in his other hand. As the scent of it drifted up to Nanaki on a lazy breeze, the sting of potent spices made him think of the ninja girl who had sent him on this quest. Yuffie Kisaragi was the one who had introduced such scents to him, steeped into smoky strips of adamantaimai drying on bamboo skewers in a Wutai market. He had balked at first, but in time he learned to appreciate the way the spice modulated the earthen, coppery tang of the giant tortoise's meat.

The man who was stuffing his face with the jerky did not look like one of the Wutai humans, though. His mane was the color of dried straw and cropped short. His companion had the same coloration, but was shorter and wider in build. Brothers, perhaps, though Nanaki couldn't be sure until he was close enough to catch their scents.

The man with the jerky scanned the horizon, moving his head in a lazy arc. When he spotted Nanaki, he jumped.

"Oh, shit! Up there!"

The other one looked over his shoulder. Both men stared wide-eyed at Nanaki, their bodies ready to spring like wary rabbits as he trotted down the slope toward them. The chocobo made a snuffling noise, shifting its weight from one foot to the other.

"Don't… don't make any sudden moves," warned the one in the bushes in a hushed voice. "Just throw it that stinking jerky of yours and back away slowly."

The man by the bird let the dried meat slip out of his hand. As they began to creep back toward the wagon with fumbling steps, Nanaki came to a halt.

"Excuse me," he called, making sure to keep his tail low and his ears pointed up. "I am in need of assistance."

Both humans froze to the spot as soon as he spoke.

"It... _talks_?" said the taller one in a breathless whisper.

"Get in the cart, Ollie." The other resumed his slow retreat. "Nice and slow."

"Didn't you hear? It–"

"I heard, all right. Keep moving."

A gust of wind tickled the tall grass along the sides of the road. It smelled of fear.

"I mean no harm," Nanaki said, lowering his tail until it brushed the ground. "I simply wish to–"

"Don't listen to it!" the shorter one hissed. "It's gotta be one of Shinra's monsters–"

"I am _not_ of Shinra!" Nanaki's feral side was still too strong. Irritation leapt through his veins like wildfire and turned his denial into a roar.

The man whirled around and grabbed the other by the arm, pulling him along in a sprint to their wagon. Nanaki's legs twitched as the instincts of a hunter kicked in, and he had to tear his gaze from the fleeing humans. He kept his eyes fixed on the horizon as the cart wheels squeaked into motion amid the startled cries of the chocobo, and held his breath until urge receded.

By the time Nanaki dared to look at them again, their cart was a rapidly shrinking speck, trundling away down the road. Shame rolled over him in waves. He had travelled alone for far too long.

As Nanaki watched the wagon race toward the blackened strip on the horizon, he realized that what he saw had to be the barren wastes that ringed the fallen city of Midgar. With his bearings thus restored, Nanaki set off again, following the road in the opposite direction.

As soon as he saw the walls of Kalm peeking above the hilltops once more, he left the road and veered east. Kalm was surrounded by more of the same grassy meadows he'd seen for days, their slopes rising and falling in gentle curves. Nanaki headed for the tallest hillock he could see. All around him the land was dotted by red and white farm houses, girded by their own little patchworks of fields and crops. The scent of warm grass mingled with the fainter smells of manure and turned soil, carried across the plains by a gentle breeze.

Maybe this _was_ a fool's errand, Nanaki mused as he surveyed the scenery from the top of the knoll. His plan was the product of wild guesswork and relied on the goodwill of humans he had never met. After the unfortunate encounter just then, his modest hopes had dwindled to practically nothing.

But then his thoughts hearkened back to the ninja girl, to her face as she had made her plea. Her tone had been imperious, her words crude… but her eyes had screamed her desperation at him. The past two times she had called, he could hear it in her voice alone.

Nanaki spied a blue house with no fields or enclosures, and set off at a determined lope.

* * *

Nanaki slowed his gait as he stepped onto the dusty dirt road that ran past the collector's property. The two-storey house was painted the same blue as the cornflowers that grew by the side of the road, and ringed by a white picket fence. Its gates swung inward and were permanently propped open, judging by the flowering vines which wound their way across and between the wooden slats. Nanaki took a moment to breathe in their delicate scent as he eyed the sign planted in the ground by the gate. The text _Dedrick Excursions_ arched over a stylized silhouette of some fanged, furry beast. It looked much like one of the Nibel wolves that roamed the upper reaches of his home continent, though the wolves here were called something else.

Nanaki tensed, tasting the air. Buried under the floral scent was a suggestion of something acrid. He turned his head, surveying the yard as he tried to pinpoint the source. It didn't come from the hulking, fat-wheeled vehicle parked on the other side of the gate; nor from the weathered shed across the road. With his head and tail held low, Nanaki skulked in through the gates, studying the house as he approached. The porch was as wide as the house, with a white railing in the same style as the picket fence. Save for a couple of deck chairs, it was empty. Nanaki saw no movement in the windows, nor did he hear any sounds from within, but the smell grew stronger as he crept up the wooden stairs.

Not only was the door unlocked, it was ajar. Knowing humans, that wasn't a good sign. The odor that hit his nostrils as soon as he stepped inside was even worse. Nanaki wrinkled his nose and paused, pricking his ears, but heard nothing beyond the wind in the grass. Everything was still.

His hackles rising, Nanaki inhaled deeper and let the stench of death guide him.

The first room he crossed held nothing that caught his interest, save for a thick rug that felt pleasant under his paws. The trail led on, and grew as he followed it, into a pungent, coppery tang.

The second room froze him to the spot. A great bear towered on its hind legs, its mighty jaws wide open and its front paws raised to strike. Next to it crouched a massive shaggy wolf, its head held low with all its teeth bared. The entire room was filled with all manner of beast, all of them with claws and fangs at the ready. None of them moved. None of them blinked, or breathed.

Nanaki had known the woman only as a collector of rare materia. Had he known she also collected the corpses of furred, four-legged creatures like himself, he might have looked elsewhere for what he sought.

But such thoughts were irrelevant now. He was already standing in her house with his nose stinging from blood, and fear, and smoke.

Tail twitching, Nanaki slunk past posed corpses and rows of disembodied heads, taking care not to meet their dead and glassy stares. He respected the human hunters of his home village as his peers. He understood the human need to collect and use the pelts of their prey, since their own bodies were so exposed. This, however, was a practice he did not comprehend.

On the opposite side of the room was a closed door. Nanaki nudged it with his nose; it gave way with a quiet creak, and sent a puff of foul air into his face. He blew it back out of his nostrils with a snort, wrinkling his nose in distaste. He gave the door a solid swat with his paw. It swung open in slow motion, revealing the front of a sturdy oak desk – and the upper half of the burnt human corpse that sat behind it.


	2. A Rough Welcome

**2\. A Rough Welcome**

* * *

Nanaki stared at the charred cadaver behind the desk. The blackened skin had cracked and the eyes were nothing but empty holes. The mouth hung ajar in a silent scream. The stench was overwhelming.

Was this the collector he had come to meet? Regardless of the answer, one thing was clear. He would not get the audience he had hoped for.

If this was the collector, did she have family? Partners, employees? Nanaki had no idea, but he knew he couldn't linger. It was hard enough to get people to listen to him at the best of times. When a dead human was involved, he would get no hearing at all.

Nanaki had come too far to leave with nothing, though. He could afford to spend a few minutes looking around. He would sense a human long before they sensed him.

The corpse behind the desk was beyond any aid he could offer. Nanaki turned his attention toward her office instead. A metal cabinet squatted in one corner behind the desk, its door gaping wide. A few open boxes no bigger than his paw, made of thick cardboard, were strewn across the shelves and the floor below. The empty ones must have been lids for the ones lined with little cushions of shiny fabric; cushions with small round depressions, Nanaki noticed.

A scenic painting was propped up against the wall on his left. Above it, a thick metal door hung open, revealing several more boxes. These ones were made of wood; some polished, others delicately painted. All of them were open and empty.

Some humans Nanaki had counted as friends and allies. Some humans he had met on the field of battle as worthy foes. And some humans, as he had discovered during his time as a "specimen"… some humans were nothing more than two-legged things.

The thought settled deep in his throat, thickening into a growl he could barely swallow. It took a brief recitation to push those memories down, and a second verse before Nanaki felt sure of his calm. He needed his wits more than ever, now that he had a thief to track down. A thief and a murderer, no less. A two-legged thing.

He rounded the table for a better look at the remains, but the dead human stared straight ahead through blackened sockets and told him nothing. Faint tendrils of smoke still rose from the body, and the stench of burned flesh overpowered everything else. If the killer had left a trail, Nanaki would have to pick it up elsewhere. With a huff, he turned and skulked back through the gallery of stuffed corpses, leaving the human among their number.

As soon as he stepped out onto the porch, he drew in a deep breath. He smelled the cloying sweetness of the roses that grew along the front of the house; the oily stink of the four-wheeled monstrosity parked just outside the picket fence; the anxious whiff of a rabbit hiding somewhere nearby. Aside from the smoke that still clung to his fur, nothing seemed out of place. His ears told him the same. With a frustrated snap of his tail, he leapt down from the porch and headed to his right, around the house.

Nanaki caught it as soon as he rounded the corner – the heady barnyard musk of a chocobo. The trail took him some twenty paces down the road, until he came to a set of parallel ruts in the dirt, interspersed with the deep scratch-marks of a chocobo's toes. The bird musk was heavy here, but beneath it lay a current of something else; a sting in his nose with every drawn breath. The zesty scent of Wutai spices.

* * *

Nanaki found the strip of jerky in the grass by the side of the road, right where the man had dropped it. He inhaled the spicy scent, committed it to memory. It wouldn't do him much good yet – the air along the road was too saturated by the smells of birds and greasy vehicles – but this road had only one destination on this side of the mountains. The human settlement of Edge, which had sprung up from the bones of Midgar's carcass. Nanaki couldn't recall a scent like this on his previous visits to the budding city; the trail would serve him well there.

First, though, he had to get there. The idea of traveling there by road, in plain sight of suspicious humans, did not appeal to him, but the wasteland around Edge was treacherous. Travel by night would have been preferable – and more comfortable in temperature – but in a bustling city like Edge, even the strongest scents would intermingle with others and disperse until nothing was left. He couldn't risk losing the only trail he had. And so Nanaki set off, following the road at a distance that would balance the threat of humans with the threat of monsters in the wastes.

The farther he trod upon the blackened soil of the Midgar badlands, the harder it was to keep his hackles down. It was not the relentless heat that bothered him so much, nor the fine dust that puffed up from the ground to tickle his nostrils at the slightest breeze. No, what made his skin crawl was the utter absence of life.

Cosmo Canyon's bare cliffs were still home to snakes and lizards and griffins. Sand spiders and desert mice made their nests in the valley shade. The red sands hid thousands of seeds, waiting for the rain that would blanket the whole canyon overnight in a glorious explosion of color. Even in the driest season, weeds defied the parching heat of the sun.

Here there was nothing. Nothing skittered among these rocks, nothing grew in these sands. A sea of barren black dust. The legacy of the humans, of course.

The legacy of _Shinra's_ humans, Nanaki reminded himself. Shinra had sucked the life out of these lands, not the people of Edge. Some humans were bad, and some humans were good, and most were somewhere in between. He knew this. He had grown up among them. The longer he went feral, though, the harder it was to acknowledge it.

Nanaki also knew that the badlands weren't _entirely_ devoid of life – but the life they attracted was a parody of it, twisted beyond recognition. Nothing could live out here for long, but monsters still roamed the wastes, walking a knife-edge between threats, just as he was doing. Bands of human scavengers still scoured Midgar every day, while Reeve Tuesti's WRO guarded the outskirts of Edge at night; this the man himself had told Nanaki. But the humans would leave the ruins by nightfall, and the WRO's patrols dared not venture beyond Edge's borders. And so the monsters would sneak into Midgar's ruins once darkness fell, hunting and scavenging, only to creep back at dawn into the wasteland to hide.

Nanaki hoped he wouldn't have to resort to such tactics. When it came to dealing with humans, he had an advantage over the monsters from the badlands. He wore metal cuffs on his legs and beads in his mane; he had soft fur to shield him for the sun, instead of scales and leathery skin; his tattoos were the work of a civilized culture. The insulting assumption that he was _tamed_ would often keep humans at a distance until his business in their settlements was concluded – so long as he remained silent.

Nanaki could smell the city of Edge long before he could hear it. It stood out against the desiccated nothing of the wastes, as a peculiar blend of life and decay that was awash in a powerful tide of rust. As he came closer, the weaker notes made themselves known, including a surprisingly mordant whiff of old Mako. It must have emanated from the ruins; Reeve had made every effort to find alternative power sources for the new city at Midgar's feet.

Weak as it was, the smell of Mako curled Nanaki's lip. It reminded him of steel walls and white coats, of needles and cages and all-consuming fear. The air in Shinra's tower had been saturated with that aberrant stench. He used it now to guide him; he wanted the side of Edge that lay farthest from the ruins. He knew from previous visits that several chocobo stables had sprung up on the fringes of the city, near the arterial roads north and south. It seemed a decent place to start. The men he was hunting would need to stable their bird somewhere.

However, his first attempt to approach a stable made him doubt his plan. The chocobos in the paddock behind the barn began warking and squawking at the first whiff of his scent. The stable guard cracked off a shot as soon as Nanaki came within range – luckily, she was no marksman. He had come close enough to realize a far more troublesome issue, though: the accumulated droppings of dozens of birds was enough to make anyone's eyes water. Nanaki had no hope of picking up the scent of dried meat through that, no matter how spicy.

Nanaki fell back and revised his strategy. The main road to and from Edge served vehicles of all sorts, including little covered carts pulled by humans on bicycles, trolleying their passengers to and from the stables and warehouses that had sprung up along the road, deeper into the badlands. Nanaki snuck in behind one of the bike-pulled carts and trotted after it as it wheeled into Edge, matching his speed with it, stopping when it stopped. The WRO's border patrol guards gave him odd looks, but no trouble. As he had hoped, they must have assumed he belonged to whomever sat in the cart.

As the road turned into a street with sidewalks, the traffic grew heavier. Nanaki hopped onto the sidewalk and spent a few breaths trying to get his bearings. He was no expert on fabricated dwellings, but the squat houses here seemed flimsy to him; they were little more than boxes with windows, planted straight onto badlands dirt. Perhaps they would soon give way to taller buildings – a forest of construction cranes and metal struts already rose tall behind them.

"Look, mommy! Look at the doggie!"

It was a child's voice, shrill with excitement. Nanaki could see the boy out of the corner of his eye, pointing at him.

"Shh, not so loud!" The woman beside the boy grabbed his hand. "It might hear us."

The boy frowned as he looked up at her, then back at Nanaki. "Is that bad?"

"Come on, sweetie." She was already pulling him away. "We're going home, _now_."

Nanaki ignored the child and its mother. He was used to hushed whispers and pointing fingers. Humans would call him a dog or a wolf, a cat or a lion. They were all wrong, of course, but he didn't care enough about the opinions of their kind to correct them. It only bothered him when they yelled "monster".

Every breath of Midgar's air had been a lungful of filthy misery – compared to that, Edge was an improvement. The end of Midgar's Mako reactors had much to do with it, as did the lack of Mako-fueled, smog-spewing vehicles. Cars and trucks and motorcycles were still so few and far between that each one that passed by drew not only Nanaki's attention, but that of the pedestrians as well.

That did not mean that Edge's air was pleasant – it was bone-dry and full of dust swept in from the badlands or stirred up by the abundant construction. Nanaki had only spent minutes in Edge and already he longed for the freshness of the Kalm plains.

Worse, the dusty air held no sign of his trail. Nanaki looked back at the road he had traveled in on. It wasn't the only road into Edge, but if the thieves had come here, then they must have crossed the perimeter at some point. If Nanaki circled the outskirts, he would come upon their trail sooner or later – hopefully, a trail still marked by spicy meat. It might be a long trek – Edge had grown by leaps and bounds in the past couple years – but he couldn't think of a better plan.

Before long, his paws were twinging with every step. The badlands dirt had been hot, too, but it had been softer than asphalt, and less sticky. Here, every speck and stone seemed to adhere to the pads of his feet or the fur between them. The shade wasn't a tempting option either; it would only make the flame of his tail all the more conspicuous. With drooping ears and drooping tail, Nanaki trudged onward, wishing his search would come to a swifter end.

Every step also brought him closer to the ruins of Midgar. He could already see the nearest stack of the city's defunct reactors stack, marked by a fading red diamond. Beyond it he glimpsed the tops of Midgar's tallest buildings, now nothing more than empty husks – and at the very top, high above all else, loomed the ruined tower of Shinra.

Nanaki had lost much in that tower. His eye, his pride, his sense of self. His balance. He had leapt at the chance of freedom, sparing little thought for anything but his return to the sunbaked sands of Cosmo Canyon. It was his duty, he had claimed. It was his rightful place, he had declared. Why should he come to the defence of the wild world outside his home, when that world had brought him nothing but pain and disgrace?

He had been as blind and weak as a newborn cub. He had not returned for the sake of honor, but to seek refuge in the lands of his ancestors, to hide behind his duties as a guardian. To hide from the world in shame, both his own and his father's.

That misplaced sense of shame was long gone now, but here in the ragged shadow of Midgar's shattered plate, Nanaki was all too aware of how close that city had come to leaving him in pieces, too.

Nanaki shook his head to rid himself of those unwelcome memories, and as he did, the sharp zing of Wutaian spices pricked at his nose. He stopped and raised his head, pinpointed the direction, and took off at a run.

The deeper he ventured into the maze of backstreets, the more the city's myriad odors mingled and coalesced, coming together into a single pungent smell called Edge, as unmistakable as the musk of some enormous beast. The sting of his trail stood out against it like spatters of blood on snow, leading him ever onward to his prey. To his primal senses, the trail was both temptation and satisfaction rolled into one, and he chased it heedless of the startled looks from the humans in his way.

The trail brought him to a cluster of concrete buildings, all streaked by long lines of seeping rust. Within those buildings was a barren courtyard, and within that courtyard was his prey. The blond man Nanaki had met outside Kalm was resting his broad shoulders against a wall, plucking morsels from a bag of jerky. As soon as he laid eyes on Nanaki, it slipped from his hand.

"You," he breathed. "The demon dog!"

Nanaki scoffed. The human was fortunate that he had brought his feral side to heel. Tenuous as it was, his self-control was enough to let the man's words breeze by him like a gust of wind.

The distance between them was too great to sense the presence of materia. As Nanaki advanced, the human raised both his hands in a placating gesture. For each step Nanaki took, the man shuffled a step or two back.

"It wasn't my idea! I didn't wanna do it, I swear!"

The air was growing thick with fear. The stink of it was affecting Nanaki, raising his hackles; his feral side was still quick to leap to his defense. Fear made humans unpredictable, it whispered – and even one as meek as this might have hidden claws.

"You took something that doesn't belong to you, thief. You will return it." Nanaki's voice had dropped to a rumble in his throat. His instincts itched with the urge to pounce.

"Oh gods," the man jabbered, still backing away. "Odin preserve me, Titan shield me… Oh gods, who comes next! Ramuh… Ramuh–"

"Cease your useless summons," Nanaki growled, "and address the one before you!"

"Oh gods, oh gods!"

The man spun around and took off.

"Stop!" Nanaki roared, but he was too late. The man had already disappeared around a corner.

Nanaki sprang to the chase. He bounded across the courtyard in mighty leaps, dug his claws into the sticky asphalt as he rounded the corner. The sight of his quarry tearing down the street flooded his body with the thrill of the hunt and spurred him onward.

"Help!" the man screamed. "It's the demon! It's coming for me! Help me!"

At first he headed for busier streets, but the thickening herds of terrified humans that scrambled to get out of Nanaki's path must have changed his mind – they slowed him down more than they slowed Nanaki. The man veered into a narrow alley and raced down the passage, hurdling over huddled bodies and smashing through cardboard boxes. But even here he was no match for Nanaki's speed. Every leap brought him closer to his prey; Nanaki could see the pattern of the man's soles, the yellow seams of his pants, the whites of his eyes as he cast panicked glances over his shoulder. Closer and closer he drew, until he could almost _taste_ –

A flash of blueish white lit up the alley with a sizzling crackle that echoed off the walls. His prey convulsed in an unnatural arc, frozen mid-step so abruptly that Nanaki nearly crashed into him. He jumped to the side instead, scraping his shoulder against the bricks as he barreled past. His instincts kept him on his feet, made him whirl around to face his prey – but the man that stood before him now was not the man he had been chasing. No, this one loomed over Nanaki's quarry, who lay twitching on the ground.

The newcomer smelled of thunder and lightning. His mane was a red brighter than the sands of Cosmo Canyon, brighter even than Nanaki's own. But it was his clothes that made Nanaki's feral side snap and snarl, for it was a uniform Nanaki knew all too well. It was the black and white suit of a Shinra Turk.

The red-maned Turk straightened up and faced Nanaki, tapping a steady beat against his shoulder with his metal rod.

"Well, well, look who's back in town." He bared his teeth in a grin. "Long time no see, Furball."


	3. Problematic Humans

**3\. Problematic Humans**

* * *

The air was pungent and heavy, like the moments before a thunderstorm. Back in the Canyon desert, that scent was a herald of relief; here, muddled with the stink of fear and pain, it was anything but. One of the two humans before him, the one who was the cause of it all, bared his teeth at Nanaki.

Nanaki knew this man. The feral part of him snarled of old wrongs and new threats, chanting in time with the blood pounding through his veins. _Hunter, captor, long-time foe._

"Hey, don't get all grumpy at _me_ , Furball. Ain't my fault you were too slow to catch him first, yo."

As the human made a show of dusting off his suit, Nanaki caught a whiff of a familiar scent. It belonged to a friend, one who had left Cosmo Canyon more than a year ago, a little before he had set out on his own travels. A clever and resourceful woman – which made her taste in mates all the more bewildering.

Yes, he knew this man. His friend's chosen. His _former_ enemy and, the last time their paths had crossed, his unlikely brother in arms. The human they called Reno.

With a measured breath, Nanaki recited the shortest of the after-battle verses in his mind; each of the four lines a mental command that drew the tension out of the limb it referred to.

"Greetings, Turk."

Each "r" rumbled deep in his throat, more a growl than a greeting. The briefest verse could only do so much, when equilibrium still eluded him after his travels.

It mattered little, Nanaki decided. He felt no urge to extend courtesy toward this particular human. Judging from past encounters, the favor would likely go unreturned.

"What brings you back to Edge?" Reno glanced at the motionless body at his feet. "This asshole?"

"Yes." Lying was pointless. The Turk had already seen him chase the man, after all.

"Sorry, but you can't have him. He's in Turk custody now."

Nanaki's fur bristled. He glared at the meddling human, shifting his weight, as his instincts urged him to fight for his quarry.

"Hey, ease up, Furball. I'm just the delivery boy, here. Boss man wants a chat with him."

The Turk held his weapon in a leisurely grip by his side. The dance of lightning along the metal rod had ceased, but Nanaki's nose tingled with every breath, still smarting from the strike that had brought down his prey. A physical confrontation would be unwise. He focused on the weapon as he recited his verse again, tamping down the frustrated snarl of his wild side.

"Why do I sense this 'chat' will not be an amicable one?" he asked once his words had returned to him.

"Don't worry, kitty cat. I'm sure the boss man's gonna be happy to keep things friendly-like, so long as this guy is willing to play ball."

The Turk chuckled to himself, for no reason that Nanaki could discern. He was about to ask what balls had to do with anything, when Reno piped up again.

"What do you care, anyway? Who's this guy to ya?"

The question reminded Nanaki of the reason for his pursuit. His quarry was within claw's reach at last, as were all the possessions he carried on his person.

"This one… stole something that was promised to me." Nanaki mumbled it distractedly; he had pinned his attention on the man lying prone on the asphalt. One could not call upon the magic within a materia orb without a physical connection to it, but it was possible to sense it from afar. It was like a presence in the dark, or whispers on the wind; one could spot it, if one knew what to look for.

But nothing danced at the limits of Nanaki's senses when he focused upon the man on the ground.

"Stole what, and from who?" the Turk asked.

The red-maned one already spoke too much, and he was... _inquisitive_ by nature. Anything Nanaki revealed would only prompt unwelcome questions, and he had no desire to prolong their chance meeting.

"It does not matter. He no longer has it."

"Then why'd you chase him?"

"I could not get close enough to sense it before. Now that I have..." Nanaki took a measured step back. "I shall take my leave."

"Hey, hang on a sec," the man said quickly, holding out his arm. "It ain't a Stigma cure, by any chance? That you're looking for?"

Was that what this one was after? While the answer to his question was technically "yes", Nanaki suspected it would only complicate matters.

"I seek a materia."

The Turk's eyebrows rose high as he looked from Nanaki to the limp body on the ground, and back again.

"Seriously? You can smell that on someone?"

The human was a ceaseless fount of questions. On a day like this, Nanaki had zero patience for them.

"My business here is concluded."

He turned to leave, but before he could take a single step, the man had darted in front him.

"Hey, hold up," he said. "I heard this guy came back from Kalm the other day. Did you pick up his trail there?"

Nanaki's paw twitched with the impulse to swat the pestering human out of his way, but the man's open jacket had fluttered as he moved, sending another whiff of their mutual friend into Nanaki's face.

"What does it matter?" he growled, reining in his fiercer instincts.

"Who'd he steal from?"

"A collector."

Again, Nanaki made to leave. Once again, the human stepped in his way.

"Hey, what's with the hurry? C'mon, wait up a sec."

Nanaki heaved out a lungful of air in his best impression of the sighs those humans were so fond of.

"Y'know, I still gotta track down the pals of this asshole," the man said, nudging the body on the ground with his boot. "That nose of yours could save me a whole lotta time. How about we partner up for a bit? Might get you closer to whatever it is you're looking for, too."

Despite his decades among humans, they could still be difficult for him to read. At times, their mouths claimed one thing while their body or their scent told him something else. Nanaki could never be sure which he was supposed to respond to.

The red-maned human always said three or four things at once. Nanaki had listened to his mouth once and ended up as Hojo's plaything. He would not make that mistake twice.

"No."

The man yelped as Nanaki shouldered him aside. He trotted out of the alley without looking back.

* * *

Nanaki padded back along the streets he had raced down on his hunt; they were empty now, save for a few gawkers who made themselves scarce as he approached. He used the peace and quiet to recite one of his favorite verses, from beginning to end, in time with the tireless rhythm of his gait. By the time he reached the small courtyard where he had first discovered his prey, the snarls of his feral side had quieted to a low rumble.

As Nanaki raised his head and drew in a deep breath, filling his nostrils with a myriad of scents, he realized something: he had no trail to follow. He had been so focused on the aromatic jerky of one man, that he had neglected altogether the trail of the other.

"Damnation," he muttered. To pick it up again, he would need to return to the the place of their first meeting, and that was half a day away. A whole day wasted, because he had leapt after the wrong quarry.

This time, he would use his reason, and plan his approach. He sought materia. Humans bought and sold materia; he knew this from his travels. Perhaps one of these humans would have what he was looking for, or know where he could find it. He might not need to trace the second man after all.

At the mouth of the courtyard, Nanaki surveyed his surroundings. A woman stood on the corner to his left, a basket of round, purple fruit on her arm. He approached her with his ears upright and his tail in a leisurely sway.

She glanced his way, froze. Nanaki sensed the swell of fear before she scrambled backwards and around the corner. As soon as she was out of sight, he heard her steps quicken into a run and heard her shouted warnings.

When one human panicked, the fear spread like wildfire, and frightened humans rarely listened to reason. Nanaki spun around and loped in the opposite direction.

A few streets later he made a second attempt. He called out before the human – a man leaning against a wall, with his head buried in a newspaper – had noticed him.

"Excuse me," Nanaki said, avoiding words that might rumble in his throat. "Can you help me?"

The man lowered his newspaper, just enough to peek out over the top. His eyes grew round and wide.

"Please, do not be–"

Nanaki got no further before the man yelped and bolted. He huffed, venting his frustration with a snap of his tail. Approaching strangers was next to hopeless.

But… Perhaps he would have better luck with humans he knew.

Nanaki had never bothered to learn the names of the streets, but he could navigate precisely where to go based on the positions of Midgar's ruins and the Edge plaza. He kept to the back streets and alleys; it was better to stay far from the crowds of skittish humans, even though his nose wrinkled from the stench of illness and rot that filled the darker corners of Edge.

The smell wouldn't have been much better in the brighter streets; this was the oldest part of the city, a patchwork sewn together after Meteorfall from Midgar's scavenged remains. Here, the air was rough and rusty and threaded through with sweetness and decay; and all over it fell a shroud of stale Mako stink. Some of it was literally built into the buildings, but just how much of it blew in from the dead city looming above them, Nanaki could not say.

Fortunately, it wasn't long before he emerged out onto a familiar street and spotted a familiar number 7 hanging from an archway above. The 7th Heaven was not yet open, but he raised a paw and let it thud twice against the sturdy door. Nanaki could hear someone moving inside, but the door remained shut. He tried again.

"We're closed!" called a muffled female voice he knew well.

"Even when an old friend waits outside your door?"

A group was passing him by in the street; someone gasped and let loose a flurry of whispers. Nanaki ignored them, and they were soon forgotten as the door before him opened with a wash of welcome scents.

"Hey there, stranger!" Framed in the glow of the doorway stood Tifa Lockhart, smiling brightly at him, with some kind of towel in her hand. She stepped aside and beckoned him in with a wave of the towel. "Come on inside, you!"

"Greetings, and thank you."

Nanaki's ears perked up as he entered, as did his tail. The wooden floor was a relief after the hot, sticky asphalt of Edge's streets, and the fruity scent of fresh-brewed tea both soothed his poor nose and struck him with a strange sense of nostalgia. He had smelled it many times before, as he and the rest of AVALANCHE had huddled around a campfire at night, sharing a pot of Cid's tea.

"It's good to see you again." Tifa stroked her hand down his back he trotted in past her. "How are you?"

"Weary from my travels," he admitted, "but it is good to be among friends again."

She seemed softer than she had been, both in voice and body. That could be said for most of the humans he had traveled with, now that they could let down their guard and sleep in warm beds, and weren't dashing madly across the Planet in a race that had felt close to hopeless at the time. Her dark mane had once reached her legs, but now it came only halfway down her back. Such things held less significance for humans than his own kind, Nanaki had learned, but he still averted his eye as she led the way inside the bar. He couldn't help but check the state of his own mane, faintly reflected in the glass of the framed pictures along the wall.

The quiet music that had been playing in the background petered out.

" _We have a distinguished guest with us in the studio today,_ " a nasal voice proclaimed, as faint and scratchy as the music. " _Welcome, Mayor Hart. In the past months, you have become a familiar sight in our clinics and hospitals. What can you tell us about the current Geostigma situation?_ "

" _Thank you, Declan,_ " said a deeper voice, with the poise of a practiced speaker. " _I have come here today to reassure you, and your listeners, that the situation is not as dire as it has been made out to be. We have many, many talented people working on a solution to this affliction, and every day they take another stride toward a full cure. We must not lose faith in the future, for as long as even a glimmer of hope remains, we strive to–_ "

Tifa reached the bar counter and the radio on it, and the sound disappeared with the click of a button. The silence was brief. The steady thumping of small feet on wooden stairs drew Nanaki's eye toward the back of the room, only a breath before a girl in purple pajamas bounced into view. She froze the moment she spotted him, and a huge smile spread across her face.

"Nanaki!"

The girl dashed across the room and flung her arms around his neck. It was a very human form of greeting – one that Nanaki had frequently gotten wrong as a cub and misread as an invitation to wrestle – but he obliged his friends. The ninja girl was particularly fond of it, he had discovered. So was this one.

"Greetings, Marlene."

"I missed you."

Nanaki flicked his ears forward. It was so sweet, the way she muttered it into his mane like an accusation.

"I have missed you too, little cub."

Their meetings had been few in number, but a talking, furry, four-legged creature must have made an impression on her – and she had made one on him, with her innocent curiosity and easy acceptance of him.

"Tifa said you had to go on a trip," she said.

"This is true."

"Did you go far?"

"I did."

"Like… really, _really_ far?"

"Yes."

"Did you go all the way to, um…" The girl paused for a few beats and Nanaki could imagine her eyebrows scrunching up in effort. "All the way to _Kalm_?"

He tipped his ears forward in amusement.

"I did."

"I've been to Kalm many times," she announced proudly. "Auntie Myra lives there. Do you know Auntie Myra?"

"I do not."

"She's nice. She makes me pancakes. The house she lives in is icky, though. It smells like onions."

Marlene had gotten up on her toes to reach around him, and as they talked she slowly shifted more and more weight onto her arms, until she was practically hanging from his neck. Nanaki didn't mind, but the girl's caretaker held a different opinion.

"Marlene!" Tifa shook her head, smiling. "It's not polite to hang off of other people."

The girl reluctantly released him from her hold and dropped down on her own two feet.

"Sorry, Nanaki," she mumbled, her remorse tinged with a smidgeon of sullenness.

"It is all right." He drew his lips back in a human-readable smile. "Though I could use a bowl of milk, to recover from the effort."

Marlene lit up with a grin. "One bowl of milk coming right up!"

As she scurried off into the kitchen at the back of the house, Tifa sat down by one of the tables near the bar and wrapped her hands around the fragrant mug that was waiting for her.

"Now that I have received Marlene's report," he said, sitting down on his haunches on the opposite side of the table, "it is your turn. How are you?"

"Oh, wow. Where to start?" She brought her cup to her lips for a sip, then held it against her chin. "I guess the last time I saw you was back when the WRO was fighting those terrorists, right?"

She told him about the children, about her business. Nanaki sat on his haunches by the table, content to listen. He had missed the warmth of her voice.

Tifa had just begun telling him about some tweaks she had made to Barret's Corel wine recipe when Marlene tottered back to them, carrying a bowl that was wider than her head.

"Here you are." She set it down in front of Nanaki. "One bowl of milk. Enjoy!"

"Thank you." Nanaki bowed his head.

"You're welcome!"

"Okay, missy," Tifa said, "that's enough waiting on tables for one day. It's bedtime."

"But I want to talk to Nanaki," Marlene whined.

"You can talk to him in the morning. Right, Nanaki?"

"It would be my pleasure," Nanaki said solemnly.

The girl sighed and dropped her chin to her chest.

"Okaaaaay."

"Have you brushed your teeth?" Tifa asked.

Marlene shook her head.

"Then go brush them now. I'll just finish my tea and then I'll come and tuck you in."

"Will you read a story to me and Denzel?" she asked, looking up.

Nanaki knew the name, though he had never met the boy. The last time he had visited, Denzel had been too sick to leave his bed.

"I sure will," Tifa promised. "Pick one out while you wait, okay?"

"Okay!" Marlene turned to Nanaki and waved. "Good night!"

"Good night, little cub."

She took off. Nanaki watched her go and waited until her footfalls on the stairs had quieted.

"I wish to ask you something," he said to Tifa. "I have asked this before, but I wonder if there have been developments since then. I seek an Enemy Skill materia."

She nodded, swallowing her mouthful of tea to speak.

"Yes, I remember. Still can't help you, though." She gave that lopsided little smile some humans liked to offer by way of placation. "Sorry."

"What about Cloud?"

Her smile, slight as it was, vanished altogether.

"I... can't say. Cloud hasn't been home for a while."

She dropped her gaze and stared into the mug in her hands. Her hold on it had tightened. Only then did Nanaki realize that until now she had not mentioned Cloud at all.

"I see," he said, then fell silent. Back when they had traveled the Planet together he had tried a few times to acknowledge what her body was telling him, but those exchanges had always ended up brief and awkward. He knew better now.

A few heartbeats later, Tifa looked up again and smiled.

"Do you need a place to stay tonight? The couch is free, if you want it."

"I do," he said, bowing his head. "Thank you."

Tifa glanced over her shoulder at the clock on the wall, then finished her tea.

"Right, I'd better put the kids to bed. I won't be long."

Once she left, Nanaki turned his attention to his meal. Back when he moved in with his grandfather in Cosmo Canyon, the kindly old woman who cooked and cleaned their home would serve Nanaki a bowl of warm milk every evening before she left. It was what she did for her own children and grandchildren, she had told him. Milk was a guilty pleasure these days; more than a bowl made his stomach ache. As much as it pleased him to know that his body was outgrowing a cub's diet, it came with a melancholy twinge. The old woman's bowls of milk had soothed him to sleep for many years.

When Tifa returned, she was smiling once again. She brought him to the living quarters upstairs, to a sagging couch at the far end of a room littered with paper. Most of it was children's drawings, scattered with newspapers and magazines.

"Sorry about the mess," Tifa said, plucking a plate off the couch. "I haven't had time to tidy up. It should be quiet though. We've tried to make sure the noise from the bar doesn't reach all the way back here. For the kids, you know."

She couldn't stay long – the bar was due to open in half an hour – but she told him he was welcome downstairs at any time. Nanaki doubted that, considering his poor success in making contact with the locals. Drunken humans were especially prone to get all sorts of strange thoughts stuck in their heads. Of course, Tifa would no doubt shake those thoughts right out of them if necessary – but after a day such as this, he preferred a bit of peace and solitude.

Nanaki climbed onto the couch and settled down, resting his head on his paws. He could hear Tifa moving around downstairs, along with the occasional clink of glass and scrape of wood against wood. The noise might have been muffled enough for the children's human ears, but his own were far too keen. No matter; after the day's events, sleep would not elude him long.

Or would it? Now that he was alone, and closer to the children's bedroom, his senses whispered something to him that dashed his hopes of sleep. Beneath the comforting scents of a lived-in home and familiar humans, ran a river of oily darkness: Denzel's Geostigma.

Nanaki tasted it with every breath. The boy was weak, and grew weaker by the day. Nanaki didn't need to see him to know it; he had seen it often enough. Without a cure, the boy's future could be counted in months, maybe weeks. Such was the price, should Nanaki fail in his quest; only he would not be the one to pay it in full. That would fall on Tifa, and Marlene, and Cloud.

Nanaki closed his eye and centered his mind on the longest verse of equilibrium he knew. If he was to succeed, he would need the wits of a balanced mind.


	4. Like Cats and Dogs

**A/N** : There's fanart of this fic, and it's awesome! :D This site hates links so I can't give you a direct one, but if you go to my tumblr (themossstomper on Tumblr), there's a link to the fanart tag under "My FF7 stories". Or go to directly to the artist jeemh-files on Tumblr and scroll down a bit – and leave them a nice note while you're there!

* * *

 **4\. Like Cats and Dogs**

* * *

Nanaki's day began with an invitation to breakfast, drawn in crayon and delivered by Marlene. As she munched on her buttered toast, they had several thorough discussions on the nature of everything from dragons to chocolate milk. After breakfast she scurried upstairs for her crayons, and their conversation continued while she put them to good use at the kitchen table. By the time Nanaki took his leave, two new drawings featuring him and her and members of her extended family were taped to the refrigerator door.

Outside 7th Heaven, Nanaki had less luck speaking to humans. The few that did respond were more interested in hasty goodbyes than in answering questions – or more interested in _him_ in one case, which ended with Nanaki beating a swift retreat after the human tried to inflict a hug upon him.

The endeavor seemed doomed to failure no matter what Nanaki tried – that is, until he trotted down another one of Edge's shadowy alleys and came across a human who neither screamed nor ran nor froze on sight. Unfortunately, it was not a human Nanaki particularly wished to speak to.

"Hey there, Furball," said the Turk named Reno, once Nanaki was within a few paces.

It was a quiet greeting, for this one; that alone was curious enough to make Nanaki slow his pace for a look at the man. He slouched against the wall, his shoulders resting on the bricks. Nanaki was no expert on human clothing, but even he could tell this one's garments were a poor fit. If the human stuck his hands any deeper into his pockets, his pants might fall down.

"Well, here we are again, kitty cat." His speech was languid, like leaves floating past on a drowsy river. "What are the odds, huh?"

Nanaki glared. Perhaps the man would eventually run out of words, if Nanaki fed him none of his own.

"Y'know, people seem pretty wound up in this part of town today. Don't suppose you've noticed?"

Nanaki kept staring.

"I keep hearing rumors about this strange critter that's lurking around the backstreets here in town," the Turk went on. "Big, scary-looking thing with red fur and huge teeth. Some say it's on fire. A few even claim it can _talk_."

"I do not 'lurk'."

"So you _do_ talk! Was beginning to wonder if I had the wrong guy."

The man's words made little sense, and the grin on his face didn't match up with the predatory glint in his eyes. Propped up against the wall, his posture offered even fewer clues.

"What do you want?" Nanaki finally asked.

The Turk rolled around to face him fully, one shoulder still touching the wall. He pulled his hands out of his pockets only to hook his thumbs back into them, pushing his jacket open.

"I was hoping we could have a lil' chat," he said. "Did some digging around, you see. Ain't many materia collectors near Kalm, so I made a few calls. Turns out one of 'em was robbed a few days ago. A woman called Maudie Dedrick." He paused, sizing Nanaki up. "Didn't have much luck talking to her though, what with her being dead and all."

Nanaki raised his tail to cast more of his light upon the Turk. An open jacket didn't help much; most of the man's body was still concealed by his baggy suit and shirt, making him difficult to read. Nanaki got the sneaking suspicion that the ill-fitting clothing had more to do with cunning than a lack of style. He couldn't begin to guess what Reno was after.

"Funny thing is," the Turk added, "she died the day you were supposed to meet her."

Nanaki's flame slashed a figure eight in the air. "How do you know that?"

"Dedrick had a calendar. Calendar had your name in it."

He glanced at Reno's hands; his metal rod was clipped to his belt, less than an inch from his fingers. Nanaki flicked his ears this way and that, listening intently. The only footsteps he heard came from the streets at either end of the alley and none of them signaled ill intent, but it was unwise to drop his guard. Turks were wily and they often traveled in pairs.

"She was dead when I arrived," Nanaki said slowly.

"That's what they all say, Furball."

He lowered his head, his muscles tensing, but the man met his glare with unblinking eyes. They had met in battle before, and Nanaki knew he was a tougher fighter than the scrawny appearance would suggest. A fight would take too long and draw unwanted attention.

Besides, Tess would be highly displeased if he dismembered her chosen one.

No, bloodshed was unwise. A quick ice spell would buy enough time for retreat. Nanaki reached out with his mind, instantly sensing the materia's peculiar hum of power.

The Turk laughed and raised his hands, showing his palms.

"Relax, kitty cat. She got a bullet straight to the heart before she was cooked to a crisp. Far as I know, ain't no guns that fit paws like yours. Besides, that guy we were both hunting, he already admitted he saw her that day. Ain't confessed to killing her yet, but it's pretty clear from the way he's acting that he was up to no good."

"You knew…?" Nanaki huffed out the breath he'd been holding. "Then why accuse me?"

"I didn't accuse you of anything, did I?" The human's grin was as wide as it was obnoxious.

"Not in words."

"Ehh, figured I'd take the chance and see how you react to a lil' bit of false accusation. Never know what you're gonna learn, yo."

"I am not here for your amusement," Nanaki growled.

"Never said you were. I just figured you might wanna know what happened to the old girl, since you were so keen to meet her and all."

With a vague sting of shame, Nanaki realized he hadn't spared the collector a single thought once she was of no use to him. It hadn't even occurred to him to wonder whether her death might have been connected to him.

But how could it be? Few people knew of his quest. Even fewer cared.

"Even took the time to hunt down her killer," Reno said thoughtfully. "You thought he had something of hers, didn't ya? Some kinda materia, right?"

A Turk would not care, Nanaki was sure of that.

"Does it matter?"

"Not sure yet." The man shrugged. "That's why I gotta ask all these questions."

A sentiment Nanaki could relate to. Perhaps it was time he asked a few questions of his own.

"You say the human was already dead. Then why ruin her body?"

"Well, that's the million-gil question, ain't it? Was it a failed attempt to torch the place, that went tits-up when you showed? To get rid of something the bad guys didn't want us to lay eyes on? To find out what crispy-fried human smells like?"

The man never used ten words where two would suffice – he used twenty. Nanaki disregarded everything he didn't quite understand and hoped that whatever remained was the point.

"I would say it is similar to what you would smell if a plate of bacon was struck by lightning."

It was a gross simplification, but human senses were crude to the point of crippled. It was the closest analogy he could come up with.

The Turk tilted his head to the side, peering at Nanaki.

"Should I be worried that you're comparing people to plates of crispy bacon?"

"Worry not. Cooked meat is dull and pointless."

"That so? How would you describe those of us who are still a pile of wet bacon?"

"Not _entirely_ pointless."

The man arched an eyebrow.

"'Kay, getting a lil' worried here now."

"No need. I believe the morals of my people are similar to yours. We do not eat our pets either."

The Turk smirked.

"Heh. That was almost funny, yo."

"Do you know what else is pointless?" Nanaki asked with an irritated snap of his tail. "This conversation."

The man pushed himself off the wall.

"Hey now," he said, taking a step into the alley. "you ain't heard everything I got to say yet. See, I wasn't after that guy because he killed someone. Hell, I didn't even know about that collector woman."

He wasn't yet blocking Nanaki's path, nor had his hand gone to his weapon. Nanaki had not moved, but the temptation was growing with every heartbeat, if only to see how this human presumed to stop him with nothing but his bare hands.

"You wish me to stay? Then tell me something that is worth my time."

"How about a whole bunch of good people getting killed, for a whole bunch of no-good reasons? Is that worth your time?"

Behind the man, above the rooftop across the other end of the alley, the broken tower of Shinra loomed in the distance. _This is Shinra's city_ , it seemed to say. _Shinra's people, Shinra's problem. Not yours._ Nanaki's feral side, not dormant quite yet, agreed.

But his rational side did not.

"Continue."

With a sigh, the Turk returned to the wall and leaned back again.

"I dunno if you've heard anything about it, Furball, but we got a problem here in Edge. The Stigma situation is getting worse every day. People are getting desperate, and some real grade-A assholes hatched a plan to cash in on that desperation. Assholes like that guy we chased down the other day."

"What do you mean?"

"There's a new drug on the streets. Some people call it Glimmer. It's supposed to be a cure for the Stigma, only it doesn't do jack shit except make people worse." He smiled coldly. "The Prez don't take kindly to that."

Nanaki had heard that title before. Rufus Shinra, President of what little remained of his once-sprawling business empire. When Nanaki had last seen him, many months ago, the Geostigma was already ravaging his body. Rufus Shinra must have joined the ranks of the desperate by now.

"You are trying to end this... false cure?"

"That's the plan, but we gotta find these fuckers first. People ain't keen on turning these guys in, so long as they think the cure they're buying will fix 'em." Reno sighed and ran a hand through his mane, though it did little to tame the mess. "Trouble is, they usually wind up dead before they can change their minds."

Nanaki thought of the victims he had seen huddling in the streets of Edge, their skin covered in ugly, oozing bruises and their cheeks wet with tears. He thought of the ones he had seen in Wutai, the ones the ninja girl was trying to save; shaking with fever, reeking of pain. How cruel could a person be, to willingly worsen their suffering?

"The human you struck down with your lightning rod," he growled. "You said he was one of them?"

"Yeah. One of the street dealers of this stuff."

"Was he not willing to talk?"

The Turk's face split into a huge grin.

"Oh, he talked plenty, all right. Shame it was mostly yelling about this fiery demon dog the collector summoned from beyond the grave to hunt his sorry ass down."

"Demon... dog." It was the _dog_ that made Nanaki's whiskers twitch.

"Yup! You scarred the poor bastard for life, Furball. Every time we brought up the dead woman, he started wailing about flames and demons and shit." The man snickered, shaking his head. "We got a few useful things out of him, though – once we promised to keep him safe from the mean demon doggie."

"I am glad I could be of assistance."

"Y'know," the Turk said, chuckling, "sometimes I can't tell if you're serious or if you just have the best damn deadpan on the planet."

"You may choose whichever irks you more."

"See? There you go again. Anyway, the guy's a pusher of this Glimmer stuff, all right. Shame he doesn't know dick about anything important, like who makes the shit or what's actually in it. Seems a buddy of his handled the business talk for the both of 'em."

"Does it matter what is in it? Is it not enough to know it is worthless and dangerous?"

The Turk raised his head and glanced at either end of the alley.

"Just between you and me?" he said quietly. "So long as there's the slightest chance it might work, the Prez wants a sample so his science team can pick it apart. Desperate times and all."

Nanaki's lip curled back.

"I do not want to hear more about Shinra's _science_."

"Hey now," the man said, frowning, "we both know this new team ain't all bad."

"We both know _one_ member of that team is not 'all bad'."

"Yeah, well, we both know what she can do when she puts her mind to it. She's working hard to find a cure. They all are, the whole team. They're trying to do some good."

Tess FitzEvan may have had the best intentions for her work, but Nanaki had been present when Rufus Shinra had delivered his ultimatum. He had left her with no choice. Were those who had joined Shinra _willingly_ as benevolent as she? It would take more than a Turk's words to convince Nanaki of that.

"The offer still stands, y'know."

Pulled out of his thoughts, Nanaki looked up. "What offer?"

"Your super nose, my good looks and charm." Smiling, the Turk adjusted the goggles that he never seemed to use on his forehead. "Sounds like a kickass combo, don't ya think?"

Nanaki's ears flattened. "I have no interest in working with Shinra."

"Well that's just too bad, 'cause how many do you think wanna talk to a demon dog? You keep wandering around town all by yourself, you're gonna run into more trouble than you bargained for."

"I can handle myself."

"And I don't doubt it, but why go looking for trouble in the first place?" The Turk spread his arms. "Come on, Furball, you're only making things harder for yourself. Hell, if it makes you feel better, it ain't like you'd be working with Shinra, really. You'd just be working with me for a lil' while."

"You _are_ Shinra."

"Heh, don't say that to the Prez. He might get cranky."

Nanaki scoffed and turned his head. The mouth of the alley was half a dozen quick leaps away. It was so awfully tempting to leave and stop allowing this human to waste his time.

But where would that bring him? Back to strangers who would flee from him on sight? Back to 7th Heaven and the death that hung over it? Nanaki stared down the path to freedom, while the oily stink of Denzel's illness haunted his mind.

"Look," Reno said, "I know we ain't always seen eye to eye, but seems to me we're after the same people here. If we team up on this one, we might both get what we want a lil' faster."

 _Which is more important, your task or your pride?_ Nanaki could almost hear his grandfather's voice. Pride wasn't the sole reason for his hesitation, but there was enough of it – along with the restless twitching of his feral side. Did they still rule him enough to cloud his judgement?

Because whatever else this human was, he was also right.

"Very well." Nanaki fixed the man with his single eye. "But do not make me regret this, Turk."

"Don't worry, Furball. We're gonna have ourselves a grand old time."

Nanai swished his tail. Reno's grin did not fill him with confidence.

"So, step one," the Turk continued. "This guy you were chasing yesterday, Ollie Wester. We got him locked up but he ain't got much to say 'bout his buddies. Don't suppose you'd know how to find 'em?"

"He was with another when I first met him on the road to Edge," Nanaki offered. "One of his kin, perhaps. They were similar in appearance."

Reno narrowed his eyes.

"Now that's interesting. Ollie boy's been keeping secrets from us."

"I have tried to find this other man, but I do not have his scent and few humans are willing to speak with me. My search has proved… frustrating."

"Don't worry, Furball. I've got people I can ask, now that I know what to ask for." He pushed himself off the wall, then paused and gave Nanaki an appraising look. "We gotta do something about that tail, though. Why's it gotta be on fire, of all things?"

"It burns with the indomitable will of my people."

The Turk stared at it, scratching behind his ear.

"Think we could put a bag on it?"

Nanaki's hackles rose.

"Hey, I ain't dissing it or anything," the man said quickly. "I mean, what could be more fucking badass than being on fire all the time, right? I'm just saying… people ain't used to that sorta thing, and it's hard to ask 'em questions while they're running away."

Nanaki huffed. As loath as he was to admit it, the human had a point.

"…A bag should work."

* * *

Nanaki trailed after the red-maned Turk along the streets of Edge, the tip of his restless tail wrapped in a plastic bag. It was humiliating, following a Turk like some pet following its master, but he had little choice. If he kept the man on his right, he would leave his blind side wide open to him. If he kept the man on his left, he would leave it open to everyone else. Going in front was unthinkable; being around a Turk who was _within_ his sight was already bad enough.

The man strolled on, his hands deep in the pockets of his oversized pants. He jacket swished with every step, showing glimpses of the white shirt that fluttered underneath. So much fabric. _Layers_ of it. How could humans stand it?

The Turk glanced over his shoulder.

"You doing okay back there?"

"I am fine."

"Yeah?" He turned and skipped a few steps sideways, looking Nanaki over. "You seem a lil' antsy to me."

"I do not trust two-legged things," Nanaki said, looking him straight in the eye, "and Edge is full of them."

"Heh." The man smirked and turned back around. "You and me both, Furball."

Nanaki looked away from him, and surveyed the sunny street they were walking down. Pedestrians mingled with bikes and the occasional chocobo-drawn cart in complete anarchy. More than a few faces turned to stare at him.

"These streets are teeming. Must we use them?"

"Quickest way to get where we're going. I ain't that keen on walking, yo."

"Do Turks not have vehicles we can use?"

"A car draws too much attention around these parts. Bad enough I'm wearing a suit."

Nanaki swished his tail in a tight arc as he eyed the humans hurrying to and fro. The plastic around his flame rubbed against his fur and only irritated him further.

Not all of them were moving, though. Some had gathered on the steps to a stark building made of concrete and steel, rising tall above the others. A man stood at the top of the stairs and addressed the crowd, tossing out phrases like "this proud city" and "our steadfast spirit". He was wearing a suit, too, though his was gray, just like his hair and the little tuft on his chin. He sounded familiar, but Nanaki couldn't place him.

"Who is that man?"

"Huh?" The Turk followed Nanaki's gaze to the speaker. "Hart, you mean?" He snorted. "Just a pompous windbag who thinks he runs the city. He's been showing his face at all sorts of charity stuff lately. Guess it's getting close to election time."

Nanaki asked no more. Few things interested him less than human politics.

A block beyond the massive building, the streets grew quiet. Their path took them past a small park – or something like a park, that in place of trees and shrubs offered twisted metal scrap, welded together and presented on square blocks of stone. Human art, Nanaki supposed. A dozen or so people lounged on the benches or loitered in the shadows of the sculptures in clumps of two and three. Reno slowed as he passed and scanned their faces, until he came to a stop.

"Hold up. Gotta have a word with that girl over there."

He pointed to a young woman who was leaning on a wall across the park. The other humans between her and them made it impossible for Nanaki to pick up a reliable scent, even though she bared more skin than most of her kind. Her tiny skirt looked much like one of Tifa's favorites back in their AVALANCHE days.

"Is she involved in this?"

"Not as far as I know, but that Wester guy I caught yesterday claims he spent some of the gil he stole on her. Wanna check just how much of what he said holds water."

"What water?"

"Figure of speech, Furball," the man explained with a snicker. "Means I wanna know if he's lying or not."

Humans played such strange games with their words. Nanaki had gotten a decent grasp of the idioms back in Cosmo Canyon, but the ones on this continent were less familiar.

"It makes no sense," he muttered. "How would words hold water? And how would lying make them leaky?"

To his dismay, the Turk only cackled more.

"Oh-kay," he got out, wiping the corner of his eye, "you'd best leave the talking to me. See if you can sniff something out while you wait, yeah?"

"Like what?" Nanaki asked sullenly.

"Hell, I dunno. Any trace of the guy, I guess, or that pal of his."

As the Turk sauntered off across the park, Nanaki drew in a deep breath. The bite of iron and steel was strong here, as was the greasy shadow of the Stigma. Someone nearby was afflicted – and presumably keeping it secret, since Nanaki saw no dark bruises or stained bandages on anyone. He saw no tall blonds either, and none of the human scents he picked up were familiar. No surprise there; in a public setting like this, most trails would dilute enough to vanish in a matter of hours.

The Turk had reached the woman. He slouched sideways against the wall next to her, an easy smile on his face. Nanaki could not make out their voices among the other conversations in the park, but he could definitely see the way she leaned closer to murmur in Reno's ear and ran her fingers down his chest – and the way his smile grew to a crooked grin. Nanaki's ears fell back.

While Nanaki had no personal experience of such things, he knew that the pair-bond among his people could take a decade to build. By comparison, humans seemed to flit from one potential mate to the next like bees among flowers. The red-maned one seemed to him a particularly energetic bee. Normally, he would pay no mind to the buzzings of humans, but this case held a personal stake.

The Turk took the woman's wrist and lifted her hand off him, but it was a friendly touch and his smile remained as he said a few more words to her. He returned with a spring in his step and a gleam in his eye, his scent thick and heady.

"Waste of time," he declared. "She did see the guy yesterday, but she had nothing new to tell me. How about you? Pick up anything with that nose of yours?"

"I sense arousal."

Reno grinned and sent a lingering glance in the woman's direction.

"Yeah? You telling me she liked me?"

"I sense it on _you_."

The man's face fell with disappointment.

"Gee, thanks for nothing," he grumbled. "How about next time you tell me something I _don't_ know, kitty cat."

"You have chosen another," Nanaki growled.

"So? That ain't gonna stop my dick getting hard when I see something I like." His toothy grin returned. "Or in this case, _hear_ something I like. The girl wasn't shy about the details. Guess she was hoping to reel in another paying customer."

He finished with a bark of brash laughter. Nanaki flattened his ears against his skull.

"Sheesh, just chill, will ya?" the Turk said, rolling his eyes. "Ain't like I'm gonna do something stupid just 'cause someone's offering. I can keep it in my pants, y'know."

"Your words do not convince me."

"Whatever. Ain't your business anyhow."

They continued on in silence – a sullen one on Nanaki's part. The Turk completely ignored him, until they came to a pair of windows shaded by striped awnings in green and white. He opened the door between them and waved Nanaki in from the afternoon sun.

"Time for a break, kitty cat."

The flood of bitter coffee and sweet freshly-baked pastries overwhelmed Nanaki's nose as soon as he stepped inside. Half a dozen tables were lined up by the windows, most of them empty. Reno ignored them and headed straight for the counter.

"Hey, Isa!" he called to the woman behind it. "Just the girl I wanted to see."

She smiled as she set down a napkin and cup in front of him. Her lips were bright red and her hair, almost as dark as the frilly black apron she wore, was gathered into a bun at the nape of her neck.

"Hey yourself, Red. What can I get you?"

Nanaki started at the familiar nickname, but the woman was clearly speaking to the Turk. It was hardly a surprising thing to call this one, but it had not occurred to Nanaki that they might have something so personal in common. It made his whiskers twitch.

"Coffee and a word, if you don't mind," the Turk said.

"Sure thing, darling." She grabbed a pot behind her and filled the cup to the brim with steaming coffee. "I'll be right over, okay?"

"No rush, sweetheart."

He slid the cup over to the end of the counter and took a seat in the chair farthest from the door. Nanaki chose to sit on the floor, with his back against the wall. Their silence lengthened as Reno sipped his coffee, watching the café's other customers as he waited. No, it was more than that. He was _appraising_ them, one at a time, much the way Nanaki did.

The smiling woman returned and placed her hands on the counter, leaning on them.

"So, what kind of word are you after?"

"Know a guy called Ollie Wester?" the Turk asked. "Tall, blond, not the brightest bulb in the room."

"Rings a bell, yeah. Don't know him personally, but he likes a couple of the girls I know from the old life." She gave a little shrug. "They like him well enough, too. Pays what they ask, doesn't cause trouble."

"I'm looking for a guy he's been working with lately. Looks much the same as Wester, so might be a brother or a cousin."

Isa's expression soured.

"Yeah, heard of him, too," she muttered. "Never know if you'll get a smile or a slap in the face, from what I hear."

"Temper problem?"

"More like a personality problem." She scoffed. "The guy's an asshole, plain and simple."

"This asshole have a name?"

"I figure he does, but I've never heard it." She gazed up at the ceiling, pursing her painted lips. "I wouldn't be surprised if he's got the same last name as Ollie, though. Pretty sure they're brothers."

"That so?" The Turk sipped his coffee and took his time swallowing it. "Know where I could find him?"

"Nope. Guess you could try asking Ollie. Last I heard he lives in that ugly shitpile a couple of blocks north of here. You know, the one that looks like a pack of behemoths pissed on it? Smells like it, too."

Reno chuckled and brought out his wallet. "Yeah, I know the place." He slid a couple of bills across the counter. "Thanks, Isa. Get yourself something nice, yeah?"

She snorted. "Sure, if by 'nice' you mean food that doesn't come out of a can for once."

"Hard times, huh?" He took out another one and added it to the pile. "A lil' extra for the charming company. Go wild, girl."

"Much appreciated, Red." She smiled and snuck the bills into her apron pocket. "Don't be a stranger, now."

Reno flashed her a grin and headed for the door.

The low sun struck Nanaki's face the moment he stepped out of the café, rendering him blind to the world. He had to rely on his hearing as he followed the Turk, blinking the spots from his eye. Fortunately the man stopped once he reached the corner, giving Nanaki a chance to recover.

"Brother, huh?" Reno said thoughtfully. "Guess that explains why Ollie boy had so little to say about this guy. Family ties and all that." He nodded down the street. "C'mon. This way to the piss palace."

The description alone was enough to wrinkle Nanaki's nose.

"Why go there? This 'Ollie' is in your custody, is he not?"

"Yeah, but won't hurt to check out his place. In fact, since he told us he's boarding in some _other_ dump six blocks over, I'm thinking we might just find something useful, like the asshole brother's address or phone number. Hell, might even find the asshole himself."

"Oh." Nanaki's tail drooped. How had he not thought of that?

Perhaps because he would have had no way of entering the man's home, save by violent means. Loath as Nanaki was to admit it, the Turk was proving far more useful than he had anticipated.

"C'mon, kitty cat. We're wasting daylight here."

Reno pushed his hands into his pockets and strolled down the street. With his tail held low, Nanaki followed.


	5. Sparks Fly

**5\. Sparks Fly**

* * *

The building didn't look bad from afar. Nanaki could smell it though, and the visual impression worsened the closer they got. The top half of the two-storey house was a passable tawny brick, but the concrete base, as tall as a human, was a mottle of discolored stains edged with creeping mold.

Beside him, the red-maned Turk waved his hand in front of his face.

"Sheesh. Guess we found the piss palace."

"Aptly named." Human, dog, cat, and other manner of beast; so many had left their mark that it was beyond Nanaki's abilities to identify them all.

"Let's make this quick. Don't wanna hang around here a minute longer than we gotta."

Nanaki surveyed the building; he counted half a dozen doorways on this side alone.

"How shall we find the right door?"

Reno had already approached the nearest one. It opened, and the man poked his head inside. Past his shoulder, Nanaki saw a list of names on the wall.

"They list the tenants here," the Turk said. "Or used to, back when someone still cared about this place. Let's hope Wester's lived here long enough to have his name on the wall." He stepped back out and let the door clang shut. "He ain't in this one, though."

As they proceeded down the row of entrances, Nanaki kept watch as the Turk opened each door and checked the list of names. Small groups of sour-faced humans loitered in the street and around the doors, watching their every move. More than a few were covered in the telltale blackened bandages, but in such a saturated smellscape as this, Nanaki could only pick up the oily stink of the Stigma when he got within a few feet of them. He could feel the beast inside him stir, troubled by his blunted senses.

"Bingo," the Turk muttered at last.

Relieved, Nanaki slunk in through the door as the man held it open. The sting of urine lessened indoors, but something more deeply foul crept in to replace; a quiet but persistent blight on his nose, like forgotten scraps of food gone to rot. Nanaki kept his head low and tried to ignore his twitching whiskers. The end of this investigation could not come a second too soon.

Two doors stood on either side of a staircase, their white paint cracked and flaking. The Turk ignored them and headed up the stairs. On the second floor, he stopped by the middle one of three doors and banged his fist on it.

Nothing. He tried again, but the answer remained the same.

The Turk bent down and peered at the lock. As he brought out a pair of thin gloves from his jacket, Nanaki turned his attention to the other apartments, pricking his senses. A child was wailing somewhere in the building. He heard a couple of raised voices, some music; all of them distant. He heard nothing behind the three doors before them.

"Keep an eye out. This won't take long."

When Nanaki glanced back, a leather case had appeared in the Turk's gloved hand. It looked like a flat wallet, but it contained a row of pointed metal tools. Nanaki had seen a similar set before; the ninja girl carried lockpicks too. He recalled a conversation long ago, between her and the flower girl from Midgar. They had compared Yuffie's lockpicks to the hairpins Aerith used, traded practical tips and giggled as they tried them out on an old padlock they'd found.

The memory came with a pang of shame. The Turks had stolen Aerith away from her home and brought her to Shinra, too. What would she think of him now, cavorting with a Turk out of his free will?

The girls' budding friendship had fractured after the trouble Yuffie had put them all through in Wutai. Nanaki had eventually noticed a few wary attempts to reconcile, but he wasn't sure how far they had mended things before Aerith had left and–

The door swung inward with a soft creak. It took him a few beats to realize that the smell of death was not just bleeding in from his memories.

"Something is wrong."

"Yeah, even I can smell that." Reno kept his voice low and pulled out his mag rod, using both hands to extend it quietly. "Anyone in here? Can you tell?"

"I hear nothing, but it is wise to remain on guard."

The man nodded. With the lightest of steps, he ventured inside.

The door opened into a long, narrow room cluttered with cardboard boxes. Nanaki veered right, in the opposite direction from the Turk, picking his way past old newspapers and discarded clothing. This half of the room was a feeding area of sorts; he may not have been an expert on human houses, but even he hesitated to call it a kitchen. Takeaway boxes of all sizes and shapes were stacked high on a folding table with wiry legs. More of them were piled on either side of the sink, amid dirty glasses and empty bottles. Some of the boxes had gathered a sprinkling of dust, but none of them seemed to be responsible for the smell.

"Well, shit."

Nanaki tensed and looked back at the sound of the Turk's voice, and saw him staring through a doorway on the other side of the room. He seemed frozen to the spot, but his face reflected disbelief, not danger. Nanaki trotted over and peeked past his legs.

It was a person – or it had been, once. Likely a man, judging by the size and build. He sat in a chair, arms twisted behind his back, staring at them with empty sockets. The two fleshy orbs resting on his red, flaccid cheeks must have been his eyes.

"You ain't the queasy sort, are ya?" Reno asked.

Nanaki gave him a sour look. "Are you?"

"Well, thank fuck for that. Can't tell you how many times I've been puked on by a rookie, yo."

He stowed away his mag rod and squatted down by the body, peering at the dead man's face. After a few moments of examination, he turned his appraising stare upon Nanaki.

"Don't suppose you know this guy?"

Nanaki's sense of smell was useless here – the dead man's flesh was… cooked, for the lack of a better word, and the stink of it overpowered all traces of his individual scent. His discolored skin appeared to have swollen beyond its natural size, then sagged from his bones like a fleshy suit one size too large. The blackened frizz on his head must have been his hair, but it was impossible to tell what color it had been.

"I… can't tell."

"Yeah, pretty freaky, huh? Not even his own mama would recognize him now." The Turk poked one of the dangling eyeballs tentatively. "Wonder if it's the way he was killed," he mumbled, half to himself, "or if someone remodeled his face first."

He straightened up and wandered over to a mattress on the floor – one of two, on either side of the room. A few books and magazines were stacked next to one of them, underneath a window with the blinds shut. Clothes were piled up against the walls; Nanaki wondered if they had been shoved aside to make room for dead man in his chair. He took a step through the doorway for a better look.

"Better if you hang back, kitty cat." Reno called without looking up from the magazines he was rifling through. "And don't touch anything."

Nanaki's ears tilted back. " _You_ are touching things."

"One, I'm wearing gloves." He held up a hand and waggled his fingers. "Two, I know what to look out for in a crime scene. And three…" He drew out the word as he carefully returned the magazines to their pile. "I need you to use your nose and ears. Ain't like you gotta touch anything with those."

"Use them for what?"

"The usual, I guess?" He flashed Nanaki a grin. "Just do your thing and tell me if something sticks out."

Nanaki drew in a breath, and immediately snorted it back out again. The air around the corpse was rank with urine and feces, along with the sickly-sweet beginnings of decay. If Nanaki were to hazard a guess, this man had been dead for only a day.

"Well, now, lookie here."

The Turk, who had crouched down by the mattress, set aside the pillow he had lifted. He picked up the pistol he had discovered underneath and held it in an awkward pinch between his thumb and forefinger as he examined it.

"Looks like the caliber matches the bullet found in that dead collector over in Kalm," he muttered.

"The murder weapon?"

"Wouldn't be surprised if it is." He set the gun down and hid it under the pillow again, then pointed at the corpse tied to the chair. "What I really wanna know, though, is who the hell this dead fucker is. Sure ain't Ollie Wester, since we got him locked up. Could be the asshole brother…" He sighed. "But if it is, we've hit a wall."

Nanaki could infer the meaning of that figure of speech easily enough.

"How do we identify a dead human without a face?"

"Gotta hand it over to the forensic team. Shame we Turks don't got one anymore." He straightened up, frowning as he surveyed the room. "Any chance you might be able to sniff out any materia in here?"

Nanaki closed his eye and tried to focus, but the fetid air around him made it difficult to concentrate. All he could say for sure was that the dead man had none on his person.

"I sense nothing."

"No materia, huh? What about people? You picking up any trails?"

"No. The smell of cooked human is too strong."

"Dammit. Guess I better call it in, then." Reno stepped around the corpse, one hand already inside his jacket. "C'mon, let's wait outside. Don't wanna mess up the crime scene any more than we already have."

* * *

Nanaki sat on the landing, the apartment door at his back. He was watching the stairs down to the front door, but from the corner of his eye he could see the Turk, who sat on the steps up to the next floor and fiddled with his mag rod.

"So... What are ya, Furball?"

"Excuse me?"

"Are you a cat or a dog?"

"I am neither."

"Really?" The man scratched his head with the tip of his weapon. "The Shinra eggheads claimed you're a cat. 'Fire lion', I think they called ya."

"Do not speak to me of them," Nanaki growled.

"Well, what do your kind call yourselves?"

"People."

The Turk looked him over, squinting. "Huh."

How much longer before the reinforcements Reno had called would arrive? The smell was bad enough, but it was the Turk's incessant attempts at small talk that made Nanaki want to claw his way out of his own skin.

"Shit, almost forgot." The man fished out his PHS again.

"Trouble?" Nanaki wondered as he watched Reno's thumbs fly across the tiny keys.

"Nah. Just letting Fitz know it's probably gonna be a long night."

The mention of her name made him think of the last time he had brought her up. Anger needled his skin like a hundred little pinpricks as he recalled the events leading up to that conversation.

"So, you admit it."

"Admit what?"

"That you barely remember that she exists."

Reno looked up, frowning.

"The hell's that supposed to mean? I'm on the job here, y'know. Ain't like I can spend every minute on the phone with her."

It wasn't what Nanaki had on his mind, but he didn't feel like debating with the man. Instead he scoffed and turned his head, but his friend remained in his thoughts. If she were there, she would probably throw up her hands in frustration at them both. She _had_ asked him to be civil to this one, once.

Well, Nanaki had been civil all day. The Turk still had a head on his shoulders. Considering the man's attitude, that was a minor miracle.

A sudden hum in the air drew his attention back to the target of his ire. The Turk had turned on his mag rod; as he waved it across the red ponytail that snaked over his shoulder and down his front, the hairs rose up and reached for the metal rod like tiny tendrils. When Reno noticed him watching, he grinned and held his weapon above his head, making his mane stand on end.

"Pretty cool, huh? Wanna give it a go?" He brought the rod lower, aiming for Nanaki's flank.

"No!"

Nanaki batted Reno's arm away and hopped out of reach. His strike knocked the mag rod back harder than he had intended; it smacked into the Turk's other arm and discharged in a flash.

Reno yelped and flinched. The mag rod slipped from his fingers – but he didn't go stiff or collapse from pain. He didn't even yell a single curse.

"Oh, man." Laughing, he shook his zapped hand. "I _so_ gotta stop doing that."

Nanaki stared at him in wonder. He had felt the bite of that rod before, knew the kick it could deliver. He drew in a lungful of air; the sheer amount of lightning in it made him wrinkle his nose, but he could not sense any pain.

"You are not injured...?"

"Nah, this sorta thing doesn't affect me much. Just tickles a bit on this setting. Makes my muscles twitch sometimes, too." The man snickered. "It's pretty funny."

Nanaki scoffed. "Humans."

"Just this particular human," someone rumbled behind him.

Startled, he spun around. It was another man, a large one, with a Turk suit and a head so bare it gleamed in the light.

Thrice-damned, red-maned human! His antics had diverted Nanaki's ears _and_ his nose, leaving him wide open!

"Oh, hey, Rude," the accursed human greeted the other. "'Bout damn time you showed up, yo!"

The strap around Reno's wrist had saved his mag rod from clattering to the floor; he swung it back into his hand with a flick of the wrist. Nanaki wasn't sure what the Turk did next, but whatever it was it made his whiskers stop tingling.

"So, Rude," the Turk said, pushing the rod into its compact, portable size. "You heard anything yet? What's the deal with all this waiting?"

"Inspector Thorne's orders. CID is handling it."

"Huh?" Reno stared up at his colleague. "The hell is this bullshit?"

"It's out of our hands. We have to back off."

Nanaki couldn't help but feel a little uneasy around someone so _hairless_ , but he had a better impression of the Turk called Rude than of his fellows. He was a man of few words, for one, and the words he did speak did not contradict his body. That made him ten times easier to read than his red-maned counterpart.

"The hell we do!" Reno fumed. "We found the damn stiff! Hell, we should just go in there, right fucking now, and–"

" _You'll do no such thing._ "

A tall woman stormed up the stairs. Her billowing coat blew a gust of sweet orange blossoms into Nanaki's face, tainted by bitter coffee and cigarette smoke. Her blonde mane was pulled into a tight ponytail, which swished irritably behind her head as she looked from one Turk to the other.

"This is a crime scene, gentlemen. _My_ crime scene. You two will stand the hell down, or I'll have you arrested."

"Well, good afternoon to you too, Thorne," Reno drawled, all traces of his indignation gone in the blink of an eye. "Long time no see."

She did not acknowledge him, not even with a second look. Instead she turned her appraising gaze upon Nanaki.

"We've had reports of a weird-looking giant dog running around the back alleys." She scoffed. "Should have guessed it was some kind of shady Shinra business."

Nanaki bristled, but Reno surreptitiously tilted his hand, raising his fingers. His meaning was clear, for once. With an angry flick of his tail, Nanaki kept his teeth hidden and fixed her with a glare.

"Look," the Turk said, reluctantly stepping aside as a pair of men with heavy-looking cases pushed past him into the apartment. "We did you guys a favor calling this in. How about we keep things friendly, huh? We called it in, you keep us in the loop. Favor for a favor, yo."

"A favor?" She planted her hands on her hips, forming her body into a sharp and fearsome outline as she stared him down. "How about this? You leave my case alone, and I won't ask how you got into this apartment."

"C'mon, Thorne, gimme a break. Without me, you wouldn't even have a case yet."

"Sorry, _pal_ ," she said with a smile that was anything but apologetic. "I'm not interested in playing what-ifs with the likes of you. The case exists and it falls under the jurisdiction of the CID. Time for you–" Her lip curled as she looked Reno up and down. "–Shinra grunts to clear on out of here."

"Yeah? Says who?"

"Mayor Hart's orders. If you have a problem with it, take it up with his office." Thorne took a step back and raised her arm, gesturing at the stairs. "The exit is that way."

The Turks traded a look. The bald one tilted his head toward the stairs, and walked on down them without waiting for acknowledgement. The redhead narrowed his eyes, but followed his partner.

"I'll see you around," he told Thorne on his way past her. To Nanaki, it seemed more like a promise than a goodbye.

The Turks were silent as they made their way down the musty stairs. Nanaki sensed a tension building inside the redhead in front of him, though, until it practically radiated through the man's suit to tickle his whiskers.

"Fuck!" Reno spat as soon as the front door slammed shut behind them.

"I'll report to Tseng," Rude said, stoic as ever.

"Yeah, whatever. Check if he's got anything on this Hart asshole while you're at it. Ain't much we can figure out from the stiff in there if we can't even get a proper goddamn look at it."

The bald one nodded and headed down the street, while Reno stomped across it. On the other side, a strip of dirt ran parallel with the sidewalk. Judging from the clumps of brownish strands jutting out of it, someone had been ambitious enough to plant grass on it once. Some strange form of post-Meteor optimism, Nanaki mused. Any lifelong Midgar citizen must have known that nothing but the hardiest weeds thrived in the black soil of the badlands. Even Nanaki had learned this much, during his travels with several eco-minded underplaters.

Fertile or not, the soil was a delight under his paws after a day of unyielding asphalt. The Turk stuck to the pavement, shifting his weight from foot to foot as he glared at the door across the street.

"This Inspector Thorne," Nanaki remarked. "She does not like you."

"What tipped you off?"

The Turk had raised a corner of his mouth in one of those smiles that only appeared to be a smile. Nanaki suspected this particular one meant that the man wasn't expecting an answer to his question, which made no sense. Asking a question when one didn't want to hear the answer wasted one's own time and that of others.

Then again, little about this human made sense to Nanaki.

"You two know each other?" he tried instead.

"Run into each other a few times, yeah. She used to be on the force in Midgar. Back in the good old days, _they_ were the ones who had to back off when the Turks rolled in." His wry smile grew wider as he glanced at the building behind them. "Guess I can see why they didn't like us much."

Nanaki tried to measure that information with what he knew of Midgar, but a crinkling noise kept cutting through his concentration. A small, battered cardboard pack had appeared in the Turk's hand, twirling back and forth in his fingers. The source of the sound was a layer of cellophane, so webbed with creases it was nearly opaque. Nanaki was barely able to tell that it was a pack of cigarettes. His nose wrinkled instinctively.

"She mentioned orders," he prompted, hoping to distract the man before he would light up one of his smelly paper sticks. "Edge is ruled by a... mayor?"

"Heh. Pretty sure 'ruled' ain't the word you're looking for. You saw him before. The windbag on the steps of city hall, remember?"

"Ah. Yes."

"Well, that's pretty much all he does. He's just a... figurehead, y'know? Like a frontman for the city." The Turk frowned at the ground, the little box dancing to and fro in his fingers. "Or that was the case in Midgar, at least," he added, "where Shinra pulled all the strings."

"This Edge mayor is not the same?"

"Can't really say what he is," Reno said, shrugging. "Far as I know, no one's elected him or anything. This Hart guy used to be the deputy mayor of Midgar, but since Midgar's old mayor up and vanished during Meteor the job technically passed to him. Guess he figures Edge is close enough to good old Midgar to count." He scoffed. "He gets away with it because no one gives enough of a shit to call him on it. Everyone's got bigger problems."

Nanaki looked over at the rust-stained door they had gone through as he digested the information; the door that was now locked to them. Two men in WRO uniforms had taken up stations on either side of it.

"Yet Mayor Hart has this kind of authority?"

"Fuck knows what he's got. Pretty sure Thorne is just using it as an excuse to fuck with me. Trouble is, it's working."

"Why?"

"When it comes to who's in charge of what, Edge is still a fucking mess. We Turks throw our weight around when we can, use our old rep to get what we want, but that only gets us so far. In this case..." He scowled at a herd of newcomers who presented their ID cards to the WRO officers. "Tseng and the others ain't gonna like it if I stir up trouble with the mayor. Figurehead or not, Hart has enough profile that messing with him could get Shinra some real bad PR, real fast. Gotta back off, for now."

"So the vultures have stolen our prize," Nanaki growled.

"Don't worry, Furball. There's more than one way to skin a–" Reno glanced at him. "Uhh... Never mind. Just keep an eye on these guys, yeah? Nose, too." He gestured toward the rusty door with a flick of his hand. "I'm gonna make a few phone calls. With a bit of luck, we'll be back on the trail sooner than later."

Nanaki breathed a sigh of relief as the crinkly pack of cigarettes slid into one of the man's pockets. Some peace for both his ears and his nose, at last.

He looked around. The packs that had loitered in the streets before were now joined by others, though they all kept their distance. Many cast suspicious glances at him, but all he heard of their muttering was speculation about the police presence, not about the outsider in their midst. To Nanaki they sounded more disgruntled than concerned by it; it seemed Ollie Wester was not the only one on the block with a questionable livelihood.

A fresh wave of murmuring among the spectators drew Nanaki's eye back to the building. A new arrival was holding up his ID for inspection at the door. The only remarkable thing about him was his scent; it pierced through the stink of the neighborhood, rife with the same foul notes of organic rot as the scene that waited inside.

"Find anything interesting, Furball?" The Turk had put away his phone and was strolling back. He kept his voice low despite the distance; low enough that only Nanaki would hear his words.

"Only that one. He reeks of death."

Reno followed his gaze, in time to catch a glimpse of the man as he stepped through the door.

"Heh, no wonder. That's the CID's pathologist. Bit of an asshole, if you ask–" He stopped in his tracks and eyed Nanaki curiously. "Hang on. You can tell who works at the morgue, huh?"

"It… appears so?"

Slowly, a smile spread across the Turk's face.

"Y'know, Furball… I think we've got a plan."


	6. The Dead of Night

**6\. The Dead of Night**

* * *

Nanaki waited by the side door of an imposing building – Edge General Hospital, he knew from previous visits. Much of Edge had gone quiet by this time of night, but the streets around the hospital still pulsed with a steady flow of arriving and departing vehicles. This was why the Turk had told him to wait here, out of view from passers-by, while the man himself had strolled in through the main entrance some time ago.

The door swung open to reveal Reno's grinning face. He ducked with a theatrical bow, which Nanaki ignored as he trotted inside. His hackles rose as soon as he stepped into the gloomy passage. Whenever he set foot in a hospital, the stench of chemicals and sickness and pain never failed to put him on edge, but this part of it also reeked of death.

"C'mon," the Turk said. "It's this way."

Nanaki cast wary glances this way and that as the man led them down the corridor. Pipes ran along the ceiling above their heads and snaked their way down the walls at regular intervals. The sway of his tail gave them shadows that seemed to shiver and cower as he came closer.

"Must I be here?" he muttered.

"Quickest way to get what we want. Getting my hands on employment records will take too long, and the corridor outside the morgue is too exposed for plain ol' stalking. Wrong time of day for cleaners and janitors, so can't play dress-up either without drawing someone's eye. But, if I happen to pop up by the elevator just as someone else is leaving, well…" The man smirked. "That's just coincidence."

Nanaki sighed. "And my nose will ensure that you join the right stranger in the elevator."

"You got it, Furball. Can't do it without ya."

The corridor ended at the smooth metal doors of an elevator. A few steps down from it were a couple of bathrooms; the Turk led them into the room for males and propped the door open a smidgeon with an empty toilet roll.

"That enough sniffing room for ya?"

"It should suffice."

Reno headed over to the sink on the opposite wall and stared at himself in the mirror. He removed the goggles from his forehead, then wet his hands under the tap and ran them through his mane, smoothing it down. He shoved his ponytail inside his shirt and did up all the buttons except the top one. He even tucked the shirt inside his pants and fastened his jacket.

"Gotta blend in a lil' better," he explained when he caught Nanaki's quizzical look in the mirror. "Can't have the mark think I'm some no-good punk, yo."

"You believe a buttoned shirt will fix that?"

"It's all about presentation, Furball." He winked, his smile a crooked line. "Lemme know when someone from the morgue walks by, and you'll see for yourself."

He pushed his hands into his pockets and leaned back against the wall. Always slouching, that one, as though his body weighed more than he could carry. It made no sense to Nanaki, considering the man was as spindly as a stinger bug.

The clock on the wall ticked quietly as Nanaki kept watch by the crack in the door, marking every second that crept by. The seconds became a minute, the minute became several. He perked up as footsteps echoed down the hall, but the man who walked past was cocooned in the fumes of cleaning chemicals. The elevator at the end of the hall whisked him away, and silence fell once again.

Nanaki lost track of the minutes as he kept his silent vigil. He took the chance to recite a couple of verses and ground himself before his surroundings could lure him back to memories he would rather forget – until brisk steps roused him out of his focus. It was a woman, with a satchel slung on one shoulder and a coat folded over her arm. The sickly smell that lingered on her had haunted him all day.

"This one," he hissed quietly.

He had barely finished his warning before he felt the Turk nudge him aside on his way out of the bathroom.

"Good evening," Reno said when the woman looked over at him. "Going up?"

Nanaki blinked in surprise. The man sounded nothing like himself. He _moved_ nothing like himself, with his back straight and his head held high.

"Only way to go from here," the woman replied with half a smile.

"Right, right. Still new to this place, I'm afraid." He strolled up to wait beside the woman. "Actually, perhaps you could help me find my way? I need to find a Doctor Warren? I know his office is on the third floor, but I don't remember which wing."

The elevator doors slid open with a ding, and he motioned for her to enter first.

"Oh, sure." She smiled at him as she stepped inside. "Do you know which ward?"

The doors closed behind them, and the rest of their conversation was lost to Nanaki.

He waited where he was – what else could he do? – but he could no longer concentrate on his recitals. Had the Turk's ruse worked? It seemed that way, but what if it failed before his task was complete? Could Nanaki find his way out again? Could he even get out of here on his own? His wits would only get him so far against doors and bolts designed for fingers and opposable thumbs.

The elevator dinged again. As Nanaki held his breath, the doors slid open to reveal Reno, with his jacket once again unbuttoned and his ponytail set free. He looked straight at the gap in the bathroom door, held up a keycard between his slender fingers, and grinned.

* * *

The Turk led Nanaki deeper into the maze of shadowy corridors, until they finally stood at a set of double doors. He slid the ID card he had pilfered through a device bolted to the wall. As the doors swung silently inward, a chill flowed from inside and the smell of the grave grew tenfold. In darkness as deep as this, the golden light of his tail radiated through the bag; by its dim glow, Nanaki made out several gurneys draped in white sheets.

As they ventured inside, the doors closed behind them with a hollow clang. The chill began to seep through Nanaki's fur.

The Turk gave the room a brief scan, then pulled out his PHS.

"Rise and shine, Doc. I need you downstairs." The response was a mumble Nanaki couldn't make out, but whatever it was, it made Reno chuckle. "Uh huh. Just knock on the door when you get here."

One he had slipped the PHS back into his jacket, the Turk hit a switch by the door. Light came flooding down from lamps in the ceiling; after the muted fluorescence of the corridor, the brightness hurt Nanaki's eye.

On their right was a deep sink and a worktable, both made of gleaming steel. Reno pulled out something whitish and stretchy from a cardboard box on the table; a glove, Nanaki realized when the man pulled it over his hand with a snap.

Approaching footsteps, rapid and steady, drew Nanaki's attention to the corridor. A knock sounded on the door and in the narrow window above the handle he saw a woman's face, peering in at them. Reno reached the door in a few long strides and opened it for her.

"Hey, Linnie," he greeted with a grin. "Thanks for coming down."

The woman's mane was dark and straight, cut short in a style much like the one favored by Yuffie Kisaragi. The structure of her face and eyes were similar, too – and, much like the ninja girl, this one didn't seem at all unnerved by the presence of a Turk. She scowled up at the man as though she were the one looming over him. What surprised Nanaki even more was that he recognized her. _Dr. Lin Uzuki_ said the ID card clipped to the front pocket of her seagreen scrubs. Yes… it was a card he had seen before.

"Luckily for you, we've hit a lull upstairs," she said. Her vowels were rounded in the way Nanaki had come to expect from humans of Wutai, but only sligthly. " _Unluckily_ for me, I'd just dozed off when you called."

"Sorry about that, but you know how it is. Turk business and all that."

"Whatever you say," she scoffed as she marched into the room. "I'm used to it. Let's make this quick, though. You never know when the next one rolls… in…" She slowed to a stop, staring at Nanaki.

"It's okay, Doc," Reno said quickly. "That's just the sniffer dog."

Nanaki blinked, then narrowed his eye to an angry slit. Of all the indigni–

"It looks like a juiced-up fighter mutt from the slums."

"Yeah, that's just to spook the bad guys. Don't worry, Lin, he's fully trained and everything. Ain't ya, boy? C'mon, show the nice lady what you can do. Sit, boy! Sit!"

Nanaki leveled a glare at the man, careful not to move a single muscle. With an awkward laugh, Reno scratched the back of his head.

"Yeah, well, maybe not _fully_ trained..."

"There's something familiar about him." The doctor leaned sideways to study the black designs etched into Nanaki's flank. "Have you brought him over before?"

"Does it matter? Just look at the stiff I brought you here for, will ya? Pretty sure none of us wanna hang out in the morgue all night."

"Yes, yes. Fine."

As she snapped on her own pair of latex gloves, Reno wandered from one gurney to the next, raising the corner of each white sheet for a peek underneath.

"Aha!" he said at the third one.

He peeled the sheet halfway down the body, laying bare the same dead human they had found earlier that day. Nanaki could have directed him to the right corpse straight away, had the Turk bothered to ask. Even in this place of death, its reek was unmistakable.

The doctor came up beside the gurney and stared at the corpse.

"Well, he's dead."

Reno snorted. "I was hoping for a _lil'_ more detail than that."

"Then maybe you shouldn't have dragged me here at three in the morning. Don't you have any pathologists you could bother instead?"

"'Fraid not. The guy we used to have back at HQ works for the WRO now, and he never liked me."

"Now why doesn't that surprise me?" she muttered as she bent down for a closer look, but bounced right up again with a triumphant smile and pointed at Nanaki. "Wait a minute. I _have_ seen this guy before!" She looked at the swaddled end of his tail. "It's your girlfriend's fiery pet, isn't it?"

"I am not a _pet_." Nanaki kept the growl out of his voice, but allowed himself an annoyed flick of his tail. "Tess FitzEvan and I are _friends_. Perhaps you saw me while she was recuperating in your hospital last year."

Dr. Uzuki stared at him. He stared back, waiting patiently.

"And now the dog talks to me." She let out a high-pitched laugh. "This is just some freaky dream, isn't it? I _knew_ takeout at midnight was a bad idea."

"I am not a dog either."

Reno stepped in between them. Perhaps he had noticed the edge in Nanaki's voice.

"Okay, here's the quick version," he told the doctor. "Nanaki here ain't a cat or a dog, and yeah, he's smart and he talks. I'll explain the rest some other time. Just check out the dead guy for us, yeah? Pretty please?"

Nanaki blinked at the mention of his name. After the endless stream of "furballs" and "kitty cats", he had assumed the Turk hadn't bothered to learn it.

"Fine, whatever." She threw up her hands. "I'm too tired to care, anyway." She leaned over the body again, muttering to herself.

The Turk headed through another door, next to a window in the wall that offered a view into the office beyond. A desk was pushed up against a wall on the other side of the window. Through the glass, Nanaki watched as Reno rifled through a pile of folders on it, until he pulled out one of them and flipped it open. As he studied its contents, he stepped into the doorway and leaned a shoulder on the doorframe.

"Looks like the cops found a name for this guy. Julius Bartholomew Wester. Hell of a name for a slum rat, huh?" He held up a densely-printed page for Nanaki, one finger tapping on a black and white photo stapled to the top left corner. "This the guy you saw?"

Nanaki had always found it unnatural to visualize the world drained of color; attempting to identify another by their looks alone went even more against his nature. But he peered intently at the picture and did his best to imagine a monochrome version of his encounter with the two men. The style of this one's short-cropped mane was a match, and its straw-yellow color would likely become that dirty shade of pale gray in a picture like this. The rest Nanaki remembered – the cadence of the man's voice, the way he had held himself and moved as he crept to the cart – was of no use to him here.

"I believe so, though I cannot be certain from a picture alone."

"Same surname, same ugly mug," Reno mumbled, studying the photo. "Guess we found the asshole brother."

"Any chance there's an autopsy report in there, so I can go get some sleep already?" It was the doctor, who piped up without turning her head.

"No such luck, Lin."

"Figures," she muttered.

"So, seems pretty safe to say this is one of the guys who killed Dedrick the collector and stole her materia," the Turk said thoughtfully as he scanned the rest of the file. "And then someone else took him out the next day."

"Who?" Nanaki asked. "And why?"

"That's what we gotta figure out, Furball." He slid the folder back into the stack on the desk and spent a breath or two adjusting the stack itself, then returned to slouch in the doorway. "Any luck with the stiff, Linnie?"

"As much as I hate to say it, I've got some idea of what killed him." She was still bent over the corpse, examining his chest.

"What's so bad about that? Means I didn't drag you here for nothing, yo."

"It also means you might get the bright idea of dragging me down here _again_."

"How's that a problem?" Reno asked, grinning. "Don't you doctors get warm, fuzzy feelings from being all helpful and shit?"

She fixed him with a withering stare. "Just get your butt over here so we can get this over with."

In spite of their shaky start, Nanaki couldn't help but feel a certain kind of camaraderie for the woman. Perhaps there was something to the human adage about the enemy of one's enemy.

The Turk pushed himself off the doorframe and faced the doctor across the gurney.

"Here," she said, pointing. "Take a look at this."

Nanaki had to crane his neck to see more of the cadaver than a limp, mottled arm. Even then his view was limited, but he could see where she was pointing: a depression in the dead man's chest, a little above his heart.

"See how the skin is all thick and leathery here?" she asked. "It's the entry point of an electrical burn. I found exit wounds on his heels."

"That so," Reno mumbled, half to himself.

"Mm. From the look of it, the current must have been high enough to cook him from the inside. Might even have melted bone."

"Damn." He bent over at the hips and squinted at the corpse's ruined skin. "Pretty sure my mag rod can't do that, yo."

"And for that we are all eternally grateful. A lightning strike would be powerful enough, but they are too brief to cause tissue damage like this. My guess would be mastered lightning materia."

"So this guy was fried, too." He looked up at Dr. Uzuki. " _Just_ fried, right? Not shot first?"

"That's right. No bullet holes in this guy, as far as I can tell."

The Turk straightened up and pushed his hands into his pockets. "Mastered materia requires an official permit. Well, technically."

"Technically?" Nanaki wondered.

"Half the records went down with Midgar. Then there's the black market, not to mention all the people from outta town." He made a face, shaking his head.

"Would materia like that ignite a person?"

"Well, Linnie did say the released energy oughta be enough to melt bone." He looked over the corpse on the table. "So yeah, pretty sure something like that might set your clothes on fire, too. Depends on what you're wearing, how long you get fried, what you're touching, on current and voltage and a whole bunch of shit like that."

"Then it is possible that the collector in Kalm was struck by the same spell, when her killers stole the materia from her."

"Yeah, it's possible. Might even be likely." Reno sighed and ran a weary hand through his hair. "Well, better than nothing, I guess. Thanks, Doc."

"Better than nothing? I drag myself out of bed at some godforsaken hour, and all I get is 'better than nothing'?" Dr. Uzuki scoffed and peeled her latex gloves off her hands. "May Leviathan rise from the deep and swallow you all."

"Good night to you too, Linnie." He caught the scrunched-up ball of latex just before it hit his smirking face.

She marched straight to the door and let herself out, while the Turk dropped the discarded gloves into a nearby bin. As he strolled toward the door, too, he brought out the ID card he had used to unlock it. He wiped both sides of the card on his shirt, then let it fall to the floor. With a nudge of his boot, he shoved it in under one of the gurneys. As he looked up, he caught Nanaki's puzzled look.

"Don't want the rightful owner raising a fuss about a missing keycard," the man explained. "With any luck, she'll think she just dropped it here." His smile grew wide and smug. "Besides, if we gotta come back, I can just nab it off her again."

His hands were in his pockets again, so he pushed the door open with his back. Nanaki slunk out as soon as the gap was wide enough for them both.

The doors fell shut behind them with a boom that echoed down the empty corridor. Reno tugged back his sleeve for a peek at the little clock strapped to his wrist.

"Goddammit," he mumbled to himself, then a little louder: "Too late to head home, looks like. Guess I'll crash in Edge tonight."

"Crash…?"

" _Sleep_ , kitty cat. I'm gonna go get some sleep." He turned to leave, but paused for another look at Nanaki. "You got a place to stay?"

Nanaki hadn't given it any thought, but he had only one option in this city.

"I shall... 'crash' at 7th Heaven." His rumble rolled off the cold walls around them, sounding more and more different with each reverberation. His tail flicked back and forth as he glanced around, which did nothing to lessen his growing unease; the shadows it cast across the hallway were sharp and unfamiliar.

"Fuck that," Reno said, yawning. "Just come with me instead. I'll take the bed, you take..." He waved his hand in some meaningless gesture. "Uh, whatever furballs like you like to sleep on."

Nanaki stiffened. "I prefer to stay with friends."

The Turk rolled his eyes.

"Whatever, man, ain't like I'm gonna stop ya," he said as he strolled down the deserted hallway. "I'm just saying 7th Heaven is way the fuck over on the other side of the plaza, and half the town's gonna shit their pants if they see you lurking through the streets at night."

"I already told you, I do not 'lurk'." Stars above, his voice sounded so _petulant_ when it bounced back at him off the walls. As Nanaki turned his head away, his tail curled under his body, the treacherous thing.

They reached a metal door, beneath a sign that declared "EXIT" in red glowing letters. The Turk pushed a round, paw-sized button on the wall and the door swung open with a quiet hum.

"Like I said, suit yourself," he said, stepping out into the street. "Just trying to make things easier for ya." He held the door open, and pointed down the street as Nanaki came out after him. "See? It's in that building right there, with the streetlamp in front of it."

Nanaki breathed in for a deep sigh and got a lungful tasting of dusty brick and concrete. These buildings had been constructed from new materials, not the rust-bitten scrap that was common on the other side of town, where houses huddled in the shadow of Midgar's ruins. The memory of that smothering, whisker-twitching odor ate holes in Nanaki's stubbornness.

Besides, stubbornness was only an ally as long as it served a purpose. The moment it began to waste one's time, his grandfather would say, was the moment it became an enemy. How much time would Nanaki waste by trekking back across the city?

Better yet, was he prepared to waste all that time simply because the Turk's presence made his tail twitch? Would he jeopardize his hunt for the sake of some _two-legged thing_? Those were the instincts of a wilful cub, which Nanaki was _not_. He was a warrior, a _hunter_. The hunt was his priority, not his comfort.

Nanaki raised his tail and tried to inflate himself with the magnanimous decorum of a guardian.

"Very well," he conceded.

Reno snorted. "Sheesh. Would it kill ya to sound just a lil' grateful?" He pushed his hands into his pockets. "Whatever. Come along, kitty cat."

Nanaki lowered his head, glaring a hole in the man's back. Sadly, the Turk didn't seem to notice, and ambled down the sidewalk without a care in the world. With an irritated whisk of his tail, Nanaki skulked in his wake.


	7. The Plot Thickens

**7.** **The Plot Thickens**

* * *

The night before, Reno had taken the bedroom and closed the door behind him. There was no couch in the room that was at Nanaki's disposal, which was just as well; the thought of sleeping within view of either of the two doors made him uneasy. Instead he had holed up in a sparsely-equipped supply closet, the warmest and most defensible spot in the room. He had gone so far as to let the closet door swing shut, preferring to keep out of sight even if it muffled his hearing.

The sound that had roused him was the Turk's voice, though it was uncharacteristically quiet. Nanaki could barely make out every other word. He raised his head and nudged the closet door with his nose, just enough that he could peek through the gap. The man sat at the only table in the room, a sky-blue bowl in front of him and a spoon in his hand. In his other he held a PHS, pressed up against his ear.

"–night at the safe house," he was murmuring into it. "It sucked, of course. The bed was too damn empty. Chilly, too." A pause, followed by low laughter. "You and me both, babe."

Damnation. Nanaki had meant to get up before him; a broom closet was hardly a dignified place to sleep.

But all was not lost. Reno was sitting at an angle to him, facing the front door. Nanaki could still sneak out while the man was occupied by his phone call. He raised himself into a crouch and carefully pushed at the door to widen the gap, keeping a wary eye on his host.

"Yeah," the man said into his phone, "must've been past two in the morning when I finally dragged my ass into bed. Bit late to start driving back." He yawned, and took the chance to stuff more cereal into his mouth.

Nanaki scoffed silently. Stealth and surprise were his main weapons when he hunted; someone this inattentive was far from a challenge. His paws made no sound as he crept out of his temporary den.

Reno glanced up and greeted him with a grin and a wave of his spoon. Nanaki froze, and his tail drooped to the floor.

"Uh huh," the Turk said, raising his voice to his usual volume. "I'll be home for dinner tonight, though. Unless, y'know... I get stabbed or something."

Nanaki pricked up his ears, his chagrin momentarily forgotten as he heard a familiar voice on the other end of the line. Tess FitzEvan, his friend and Reno's chosen – _ostensible_ chosen, he amended sourly, in light of the previous day's encounter.

The man was cackling, too loudly for Nanaki to hear what she was saying.

"Kidding, kidding! I'm just kidding, Fitz!" Reno laughed again, blotting out her response. "Okay, okay. Bad joke. I won't get myself stabbed again, I promise. Might get shot, though."

Tess groaned something Nanaki couldn't quite make out.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," the Turk said, still snickering. "Look, I gotta get going. See ya tonight, babe."

He set the PHS down on the table and plunged his spoon into his bowl. Then he paused, and looked over at Nanaki. His goggles were absent; now that he was leaning over his bowl, he had to tilt his head back to see past the hair that hung in his eyes.

"So, uh... What do you eat for breakfast?" He held up a spoonful of cereal. "Not this sorta thing, I'm guessing?"

"No."

Nanaki could have explained that breakfast was a human concept that held no meaning for him, but he didn't. This one had not earned the right to know the ways of his people.

"Um..." The man looked over at the kitchen corner. "Hold on a sec. I'll check what we've got."

He got up and peeked into the cabinets above the sink, one by one. His clothing drew Nanaki's eye. His pants were made of a stiff, dark blue fabric, worn thin in places, where the color faded to a hue paler than his breakfast bowl. His short-sleeved shirt was red, almost the same red as his mane, which spilled down his back unfettered, for once.

"You are not wearing your Turk clothes," Nanaki remarked.

"Uh huh. I wanna chat to some people who don't much appreciate being seen with a Turk. Bad for business, or so I'm told."

Nanaki swished his tail in a restless arc. The man's body was easier to read without the loose fabric of his suit concealing the posture of limbs and the tension of muscles, but it was _strange_ to see him in something other than black and white. The suit marked him as a threat, a danger to watch at all times. Without it, he looked like just another human.

Reno opened another cupboard.

"Oh, hey, there's a couple of tuna tins in here. You like tuna?"

"I will eat it." Breakfast or no, it was not in his nature to refuse food when it was offered – especially when three days had passed since his last full meal.

Reno grabbed a blue bowl like his own from another cupboard, and a small metal contraption from a drawer, which he attached to one of the tins. As he turned the handle on it, filling the air with a metallic tearing sound, the smell of salty, long-dead fish wafted across the room. Nanaki's mouth watered. Three days of fasting wasn't much of a bother, but it made his body eager to respond to any kind of food; even this.

Back at the table, the man paused and scratched the back of his head.

"Uh, floor or table?"

As loath as Nanaki was to share a table with a Turk, he was even less inclined to have one serve him food off the floor like some pet.

"Table."

Reno set down the bowl with a flourish, which he continued into a ridiculous bow once he let go.

"Breakfast is served."

Nanaki ignored the chair and shifted his weight onto his hind legs, placing his front paws on the table for balance. The tuna disappeared with two bites and one thorough lick of his tongue, after which Nanaki returned to his vantage point by the door. He watched the man, who in turn stared at the screen of his phone and occasionally tapped a few keys. The room filled with the quiet popping of soaking cereal, interspersed with the soft clinks of Reno's spoon and his energetic chewing.

"So," he said after a few mouthfuls. "What're we thinking?"

Nanaki tilted his head to one side, puzzled.

"I cannot say. I do not know what thoughts may dwell in a mind like yours."

"Heh. You and everyone else." The Turk shoveled in another spoonful of cereal. "What I mean is," he continued after a few crunchy bites, "we're looking for a killer who's got a mastered lightning materia, right? And we're pretty sure this lil' thunderball came from that collector, Dedrick?"

"As sure as one can be with such scant information."

"Right. Thing is, though, asking around for someone wielding a thunderball ain't gonna get us very far. Anyone who knows something also knows they might end up getting their own ass fried for blabbing to strangers about it." He stared up into nothing, slowly munching on his mouthful until he gulped it down. "I think we gotta come at this materia thing from a different angle."

"Which angle is that?"

"Those guys made off with a whole bunch of materia, right? So, where has it gone?"

"None of it was on the corpse," Nanaki mused out loud.

"Yeah, and his buddy didn't have any either. The killer might've run off with it all and kept it, of course, but if we're lucky… our murdering thieves tried to fence it."

He squinted. "They... built barricades?"

The Turk cackled with glee, until Nanaki lowered his head and glowered at him.

"Sorry," Reno said, grinning. "What I'm saying is that they might've tried to sell it first."

"Then why did you not say so?" Nanaki muttered with an annoyed flick of his tail.

"Ease up, Furball. Look at the bright side. You just learned a new word, yo."

Nanaki's ears sunk back. Were it not enough that the man's body refused to agree with his eyes and his mouth? No, even the words that poured from that mouth had to mean different things.

"I presume you had a point in mind with this... 'fencing'?"

"Yeah. It might be a way to get us some more answers." The Turk popped one last spoonful of cereal into his mouth and got up, pushing his chair back with his legs. "So, today we chat to people who buy and sell stolen stuff," he said as he plunked the bowl and spoon into the sink, "and ask if anyone's tried to sell a pile of materia in the past day or two. Some of 'em might not be interested in spilling the beans, but maybe your nose can tell us if something don't add up."

Nanaki nodded, and decided not to ask what beans had to do with anything.

* * *

After decades among humans, Nanaki knew a number of names for clothing: shirts and pants, shoes and socks, robes and shorts. With a moment's thought he could recall a few more specific words, like suits and sandals. It was clothing intended for cold weather that he struggled with the most, for it was what he had seen the least – one such example was the name for the loose, black garment the Turk had pulled over his t-shirt before they left. A "hoodie", he had informed Nanaki. It was a simple enough name to remember because it did indeed have a hood, which the man had used to cover most of his hair.

Its baggy sleeves also concealed the wide leather band around the man's left wrist. The cuff itself was plain enough not to draw attention, Nanaki supposed, even with the clasp intended to secure the strap of the mag rod Reno carried, but the materia slotted into the leather was not. Their inner glow, faint as it was, would always mark them as more than mere baubles. Nanaki reached out with his senses. One of the orbs appeared to boost the user's magical abilities; the other would put a person to sleep or render them silent. Neither would have been his first choice, but a Turk would likely have different priorities. Of course, Reno's mag rod might have contained ones that were more practical in battle; but if so, the casing hid them from Nanaki's senses.

They dropped by the café they had visited the day before, but the informant wasn't there, so Reno took them to an apartment building a few blocks away instead. Once through the front door, they passed an office with a window into the foyer. The sour-looking woman inside squinted at Nanaki with open suspicion as they walked past, but she let them pass without comment.

The Turk headed straight for the stairs and jogged up a couple of flights. Halfway down a corridor with a sticky floor, he stopped and rapped his knuckles on the door. Nanaki heard a flurry of shuffling and rustling, but no one came to the door.

"Someone is within," Nanaki informed him.

Reno knocked again.

"Yo, Isa," he called through the door. "It's me, Red."

As soon as he had said his nickname, Nanaki heard footsteps approach. The door was opened by the woman he had met at the café the day before – well, his nose told him it was the same woman. To his eyes, she looked very different. Her dark hair hung free, almost the whole way down to her waist. Nanaki had no idea what her outfit might be called, but it clung to her like a black and shimmery second skin – though the zipper in the front had only been pulled up part of the way, revealing a fair bit of her own skin.

"Whoa, hello." Reno's eyes went wide as they dipped down across her tightly hugged figure. "Uh, this a bad time?"

The woman smiled. "I don't have anyone in here with me, if that's what you're asking."

" _Yet_ , I'm guessing."

"Good guess, darling." She crossed her arms, raising an eyebrow. "So, I hope this will be a _quick_ visit…?"

"Gotcha," he chuckled. "I'll get right to the point, then. Say I scored some less than legal materia, and wanted it off my hands and fast. Who'd I wanna talk to these days?"

"Less than legal, huh?"

"Stolen, if you wanna be precise about it."

She hummed and leaned a shoulder on the door frame. As she stared up at the ceiling in thought, the Turk's gaze drifted lower.

"Well, I hear the owner of The Golden Orb isn't too picky about where her stock comes from," she said slowly. "Back in the Midgar days, she had a whole backroom full of blackmarket materia."

"That so?" Reno asked, his attention back on her face.

Isa nodded. "Better yet, she's got a problem that needs solving. I hear she's had trouble with some gangbangers lately."

"What kind of trouble?"

She smiled apologetically. "Sorry, honey, don't know the details. You'd have to ask her."

"The Golden Orb, right?"

"Yeah. It's on Fifth, a few blocks from here." She turned away and craned her neck, checking something inside the apartment. "I hate to be rude, darling, but is that all? I'm meeting a client in fifteen minutes."

A look of understanding dawned on the Turk's face.

"Working your lil' sideline again, huh?" he asked, looking her over with another lingering gaze.

"Well, duh. Think I dress like this for fun?" She smirked and looked down at herself, toying with her low-hanging zipper. "Well… _Just_ for fun?"

"Just a lil' surprised, is all. Thought you'd given this sort of thing up."

She shrugged. "Eh, you know how it is. Hard to make ends meet pouring coffee all day. So, if you happen to know any polite gentlemen in need of a little discipline..."

She smiled and winked, to which he responded with a broad grin.

"I'll be sure to send 'em your way."

Nanaki shifted his weight, tail swishing. Reno's scent was thickening again, telling him far more than he wanted to know.

"Thanks, darling," Isa said, then peeked down the hallway toward the stairs. "So, anything else on your mind?"

"Actually… there's one more thing you could help me with." Reno paused, just long enough to draw a deeper breath. "It's to do with Dino, sorta."

Her smile faltered, and when it returned it had lost some of its radiance.

"What of him?"

"Could use something of his. Was hoping I could borrow it."

She sighed and looked away.

"There's a big tip in it for ya," he added. "And I'll give it back as soon as I'm done with it. Promise."

She spent another moment in thought, then nodded reluctantly and stepped back. "You'd best come in, then."

"Wait here," Reno told Nanaki.

Once he had slipped inside, the woman closed the door. Nanaki glared at it, bristling. What kind of teamwork was this, when he was so carelessly shut out? He pricked his ears, but he couldn't hear their voices. They must have moved into another room.

The air had turned sultry and sweet like the nectar beneath the heavy petals of Gongagan blossoms; it was her perfume, lingering in the corridor. The Turk's scent lingered, too, and the longer Nanaki waited, the harder it was for him to ignore the husky excitement in it. What was taking them so long? Hadn't she said she was meeting someone?

He picked up on footsteps at last, and the door opened. Out slunk Reno, who gave Nanaki a grin.

"Sorry to keep ya waiting."

He swaggered off toward the stairs. Nanaki slashed the air with his tail as he paced after him. At the foot of the stairs Reno glanced back at him, which became a more curious look.

"What's with the evil eye, kitty cat?"

"You reek of it again."

Much to Nanaki's consternation, the Turk just laughed.

"Well, duh. Didn't you see what she was wearing? Though I guess it wouldn't matter to you, even if you did. Whatever. Your loss, yo."

Nanaki glowered. After a while, Reno threw his head back and sighed.

"People like to look, all right? Well, _human_ people do, anyway. And sometimes we see something or someone that revs our engines. It just happens. It's... biological, y'know?"

Nanaki squinted at him.

"Engines...?"

"We get turned on. Don't mean we gotta do something about it. Hell, half the time I don't even want to." He shrugged. "It's just looking."

"So you say."

The Turk narrowed his eyes, and turned to face Nanaki fully.

"Okay, Furball, let's play your weird lil' sniffing game. If you can smell when I'm turned on, you oughta be able to smell if someone's been all over me, right?" He dropped into a squat and shoved down his hood. "Who do you smell on me right now?"

Isa's heady perfume was strong on him, but it was superficial, clinging to his clothes. Nanaki brought his nose closer to Reno's face and inhaled. Beneath the man-made scents of perfume and laundry detergent was another; the scent of another human on his skin, mingling with the man's own. It was faint, fainter than the first time they had met a few days ago, but it was still unmistakable.

"Tess."

"Have you ever smelled anyone else? Not just these past few days, but _ever_?"

As irritating as it was to admit the human had a point, Nanaki felt relief.

"There ya go," Reno said, apparently taking Nanaki's silence as agreement. "Case closed." He bounced up and out of his crouch. "Now get off my back about it, and quit sniffing me all the time. That's messed up, yo."

"My people like to sniff." He paused. "It is biological, you know."

The man was reaching behind his neck to pull his hood back up, but at that he did a double take. Slowly, a grin spread across his face.

"Holy shit. You trying to be funny, kitty cat?"

It had been more out of petulance than anything, but few humans knew him well enough to pick up on the signals; he had been told his voice sounded flat to their ears. Some humans had used the word "deadpan" to describe it, including this one – and Tess.

She had asked him to be civil to this one, he recalled with a twinge of guilt. He ought to honor her wish, especially since his suspicions had proven unfounded.

"One of us should make the effort." Nanaki drew his lips back, mimicking Reno's toothy grin.

" _Damn_ , Furball." The man cackled. "Keep this up and you might just grow a sense of humor."


	8. On the Trail

**8\. On the Trail**

* * *

The door to The Golden Orb was locked, and the blinds were down in the display window. Reno cupped his hands around his face, trying to peek in past the blinds, then checked the opening hours on the door.

"Should be open by now," he muttered. "Wonder what's going on?"

Nanaki stepped up to the door and pricked his ears. "I hear movement inside."

Reno banged on the door. The first try yielded nothing, nor the second, but at the third time the door cracked open and a woman peered out beneath the curve of a safety chain. A thick, dark bruise was forming underneath her eye, just above her swollen cheek. When Nanaki breathed in, he caught the warm, coppery tang of blood.

"Damn," Reno said, frowning. "Someone sure did a number on you."

"You could say that," she muttered.

"Looks pretty recent, too. That happen just now?"

Her single visible eye narrowed as it traveled up and down over Reno. "I don't know you, and you sure don't look like a cop to me. What's it to you?"

"Turk business."

"You don't look much like a Turk, neither."

Chuckling, he brought out his wallet and fished out an ID card emblazoned with the Shinra logo. She took her time examining it.

"Shinra Turk, huh?" She huffed. "Didn't think you guys were still around. Hell, didn't think Shinra was still around."

"Yeah, well, learn something new every day." He slipped his wallet back into his pocket and offered her a friendly smile. "Mind if we come in?"

Her eye dipped down to Nanaki, then back up to the Turk.

"And if I do mind?"

"It's better if you don't."

"Better for me, huh?"

Reno just kept smiling. The woman scoffed and shut the door in their faces. A chain rattled, then the door swung open all the way.

The room they stepped into was dim, lit only by what little filtered through the blinds, and the air was thick with blood and fear. A pair of glass display cases ran parallel with the wall, both of them smashed into pieces. Nanaki had to watch his step as he picked his way farther inside.

The woman was plump and so short that she barely came up to Reno's elbows. Most of her face was obscured by the bloody towel she pressed to her forehead, and her movements were slow and deliberate, each accompanied by a hiss of breath. Nanaki wished to offer her a Cure, but he held his tongue. He had no idea how she might react, and he did not wish to unsettle her further. Best to wait until he had a better understanding of the situation.

Reno eyed the door as she closed it.

"This the door they came through?"

"Yeah. They were waiting for me, rushed me as soon as I unlocked it in the morning. Knocked me down and ripped off my bracelets before I got the chance to fire anything off." She moved her hand in an awkward arc, minding her shoulder. "You see this goddamn mess? Made off with all my stock, too, so I can't even fix my face."

Nanaki tasted the air again, trying to pick out individual human scents, but the room was a hotchpotch of them. Without a trail to follow, it was impossible to guess which ones belonged to the perpetrators and which to the woman's customers.

" _All_ you had, huh?" the Turk asked her.

"That's right," she spat bitterly, shuffling back to droop against the nearest wall. "All of it."

"You sure about that? The way I hear it, you've got a lil' sideline going."

She froze for a moment; it was the only visible sign Nanaki saw, but he smelled a fresh gust of fear.

"Turks ain't cops, darling," Reno said, giving her half a smile. "All I want is to find the guys I'm after. Chances are they're the ones who fucked you over, so the more you tell me, the faster I can catch 'em. Win-win, yo."

She studied him a while, then exhaled in a loud huff.

"Fucking shit-stains, that's what they are." She pushed herself off the wall and limped to a metal door in the back. "Wasn't lying to ya, Turk. They knew about my lil' backroom business, too."

She unlocked the door and flipped a light switch. The Turk stepped into the doorway for a look, while Nanaki was content to survey the backroom past his legs. The shelves lining the walls were empty, while the floor was strewn with a jumble of split-open boxes and packing material. The human scents were fewer in here; Nanaki drew in a deep breath, trying to commit them all to memory.

"Grabbed everything you had, huh? Thorough sons of bitches." Reno stepped back to let her close the door. "Recognize any of 'em?"

"Don't have any names for ya," she said, sagging into a rickety chair by the door. "They had their faces covered, but I'm pretty sure I've seen one of them before. He's got his whole right arm all inked up." She waved a hand along her own to demonstrate. "Tried to keep that covered, too, but I saw enough of it. Tall guy, pretty fit. Dark hair, just as big a mess as yours." She flicked her chin up at Reno. "Whenever I see him, he's wasting his time on some street corner or another around Domino Market."

"Dealer?"

She shrugged, then winced and pressed her free hand to her shoulder.

"Hang on, lemme take care of that for ya."

He raised a hand and wiggled his fingers. She arched an eyebrow and looked him over with renewed interest.

"Materia, huh? Thanks."

"Favor for a favor, yo."

He gave her a grin and let his hand hover over her sore shoulder. He stuck his other inside the pocket of his hoodie; reaching for the materia housed in his mag rod, Nanaki guessed. Moments later, the greenish shimmer of a Cure snaked from his sleeve and out along his fingers, to spread over the woman's body. She closed her eyes and sank back with a sigh of relief.

"Guess he could be a dealer," she mumbled. "Wouldn't know, really. Whatever he might be selling, it ain't something I'd be interested in." She hacked out a shrill, nasal laugh. "Unless he's selling my goddamn stock, of course. Well, good luck with that, asshole!" She spat out the last part as if the empty air was her enemy, standing right there before her.

"Why do you say that?" Reno let his hand fall as the healing glow faded.

"Ain't much of a market for materia these days. Back in Midgar I'd be restocking every week." She lowered her towel and grimaced at the red stains on it. Her forehead was still smeared with blood, but the Cure must have sealed up the wound it had bled from. "Nowadays I'm lucky if I sell one or two a month. Ain't easy to find new stock, either. Dunno how I'm gonna bounce back from something like this." She frowned as she looked over her display cases, glittering with shattered glass.

"Is it that hard to stock up your backroom business? Would've thought you get people offering to sell, too."

"That might've been true back in Midgar, but times have changed. Been months since the last time someone came in looking to sell. I can't offer much nowadays, so my regulars have moved on to greener pastures. Plenty of other goods that'll get a better price on the black market around here."

The Turk pursed his lips in thought, his gaze flitting about the shop.

"You said this guy hangs out at Domino Market?"

"Yeah, just down the street." She waved her bloody towel, presumably in the direction the market. "Turn left at the door and keep walking. Can't miss it."

"Thanks. You take it easy, now." He turned to leave.

"The hell I will." She hopped to her feet and jabbed a knotty finger at them. "You best be quick about finding this punk, 'cause the second I get my hands on a materia that delivers enough of a whooping, you bet your ass I'm gonna try it out on that lil' fuck!"

Reno grinned and gave her a lazy salute. "Appreciate the heads-up, ma'am."

Once outside, he crossed the street and turned to study the building they had just left.

"So, what the hell do we make of this?" he mumbled to himself.

Nanaki eyed the building too, though he had no idea what the Turk might be looking for. Nothing stood out to him.

"One raid on a materia collection out in the countryside didn't mean much on its own," Reno continued, keeping his voice low. "Might've just been the most valuable stuff they found, in a house that was easy to rob without any neighbors walking in on 'em. But now we've got two hits."

"You believe they are on the hunt for materia?"

"Don't you? Guess this _could_ be a different bunch and we're getting all worked up about a coincidence…" He frowned at the building for a while. "Nah, there's something here that keeps bugging me. I think we oughta see where this materia angle takes us. So, why might a gang of Glimmer dealers want a fuckton of materia all of a sudden?"

"Perhaps they are in need of gil," Nanaki suggested, remembering their morning conversation. "Materia is valuable."

"Everyone's in need of gil in this town, but I ain't sure truckloads of materia is gonna help 'em with that. You heard the lady, right? Takes months to line up a buyer around here, and these guys don't strike me as having that kinda patience. Pretty sure a bunch of Edge street pushers don't have the connections to take it overseas, either."

"Perhaps they seek a specific kind, like I do."

"And they're too dumb or clumsy for a precision job?" He snorted. "Sure, it's possible. What kind, though? Where does the rest go?"

"I… cannot say."

The Turk hummed and pushed his hands into his hoodie pocket. He looked down the street, eyes still narrowed in thought.

"Well, one thing I _do_ know is that I really wanna get my hands on some of this Glimmer stuff they're pushing. Let's see if Mr. Tall, Dark and Fit can help us out with that."

* * *

Nanaki sat by the railing of a second-floor balcony, surveying the market below from the shadow of a red awning. The market had sprung up along a street off one of Edge's main avenues, wide enough for stalls on each side. Humans filed past the colorful fabric roofs like rows of oversized ants, occasionally pausing to paw the goods or haggle. He paid them only cursory interest. If Reno was right, their quarry was more likely to be selling than buying, and unlikely to do so from a stall in a market.

The Turk seated beside him had finished his second pie of the afternoon and was tapping his fingers on the table, one after another in a steady rhythm. A metallic glint caught Nanaki's eye; a silver ring had appeared on the man's pinky finger, engraved with a zig-zag pattern. Nanaki couldn't recall seeing it before. Maybe Reno had received it from his informant.

Nanaki decided not to pry. After all his suspicions, the Turk might take it the wrong way.

"Any chance you sniffed out something interesting at that Golden Orb place?"

At the man's question, Nanaki took a moment to recall the day's earlier events. His nostrils had been saturated by the woman's blood and her fear – nothing odd about that, considering the circumstances. Unfortunately, that had drowned out all the fainter scents.

"Nothing worthy of mention."

Reno hummed. For a while the only noise he made was the clinking of his spoon as he stirred his coffee.

Not that that meant silence. The sounds of chatter and raised voices drifted up from the market, a constant background hubbub. It masked the conversation of the other tables – which meant any talk between him and the Turk was reasonably safe from eavesdroppers, too.

"You're a guardian, right? Ain't that what you call yourself?"

Perhaps the absence of that deterrent was why the man wouldn't keep his mouth shut.

"Yes," Nanaki sighed, resigning himself to yet another chat.

"So… How are you guarding anything from here?"

"We protect more than the land. We protect the knowledge and wisdom that is carried in the minds of the people who live on it. This sickness…" His eye was drawn, once again, to a pair of scruffy-looking humans huddling in an alley down across the street – and to the stains in their bandages. "It is a threat to the ones I protect, just as it is one to you."

"Uh huh. And it just so happens that you have to travel halfway 'round the Planet to figure it out."

He lowered his head, ears drooping. "I cannot defeat it from the Canyon."

"Hey, it's cool. Nothing wrong with wanting to see the world. Best part of the job, if you ask me."

Nanaki whipped his head around and glowered at the man.

"My duty is nothing like your job!"

"That so?" Reno raised his cup and took a sip. "Funny. Here I thought you were just telling me all about how you're working your ass off for something you're duty-bound to protect."

Nanaki was struck silent. Duty, protection – how could a _Turk_ speak of such things as if they held any meaning for one such as he?

"What would you know of duty?" he muttered.

"Heh. More than you give me credit for, seems like."

Nanaki turned away from the Turk. To think he would stoop to ally himself with one of their kind.

Though it wasn't the first time. He had teamed up with two Turks a year back, as they and Tess FitzEvan had risked their lives to bring the red-maned one back from the brink of death. It wasn't even the second time, or the third; he had once teamed up with this one, too, to recover Tess. Before that, he and the rest of AVALANCHE had joined forces with a pair of Turks to rescue the ninja girl Yuffie, along with one of the Turks' own.

The farther back Nanaki reflected, the lower his tail drooped. In the light of his memories, his rebuttals looked flimsy and petty. He shook his head, scattering his thoughts to the wind. These were not paths he cared to walk any further.

"There, across the road." Reno gave the direction with a flick of his chin. "Sure looks like tall, dark and fit to me."

A trio of men were casually pushing their way down the street, disturbing the steady current of humans. Even without the shiny purple jacket he wore, the one in the middle would have stood out. He was half a head taller than the others, with an impressive mane of black, loose curls. With his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket and his elbows spread out, he took up as much space as the other two combined.

The trio veered off the street into the alley Nanaki had been watching. The two scruffy characters who had waited at the mouth of the alley backed in deeper as the newcomers approached, but they did not leave. Nanaki saw the lips of one of them move rapidly as the man raised a hand clutching bills. The tall one nodded and gestured to one of his friends – the one wearing gloves despite the balmy weather – who took the gil and counted it. After his nod, the leader took something out of his pocket and tossed it toward the duo. Nanaki couldn't make out what it was from such a distance, but whatever it was, the duo scrambled to catch it before it hit the ground.

"Well now, how 'bout that," the Turk murmured. "Guess I oughta go have a chat with the guy."

He got up and pulled his hood up over his head, but when Nanaki got to his feet, too, Reno held up his hand.

"Best if you hang back, Furball. Don't want this guy paying too much attention to us, and you're a lil' hard to miss, y'know?"

Nanaki eyed the man, and the swagger in his step as he crossed the balcony. Tufts of hair peeked out of the hood, vibrantly red against the dark fabric.

"And you are not?"

The Turk turned back by the door and flashed a grin.

"I'm exactly as missable as I wanna be, yo."

With that, he was gone. Nanaki huffed and returned his attention to the street below. Soon, he saw Reno reappear on the sidewalk. His shoulders were hunched, but it wasn't the carefree slouch Nanaki was accustomed to seeing. Fascinated, he studied every move and wary glance as the man slunk across the street. When Reno paused at the entrance to the alley and peeked in, arms tucked in against his body and head held low like a rabbit huddling in a hole, Nanaki felt the strongest urge to sniff out his scent. Would _it_ tell the truth about his nature, where his body and his mouth would not?

The trio had noticed the Turk's arrival. As he shuffled into the alley, the trio of men approached him. Nanaki couldn't hear their words over the bustle of the market, but he could read their bodies. The shiny jacket of their quarry caught the light, gleaming like purple plumage as he swaggered between light and shadow. He even strutted like a rooster, chest puffed and chin raised. Reno, by contrast, stood with shoulders stooped, shifting his weight from foot to foot. He had pushed both hands deep into his front pocket; the baggy hoodie was pulled taut across his back, revealing just how slim he was under all that fabric.

Nanaki tensed as their prey stepped right up to Reno, invading his personal space to stare him down – yet the Turk averted his face and kept his eyes fixed upon the ground. The red-maned one, backing down from a challenge? Nanaki had thought him incapable of such a thing.

Their quarry seemed to loom as he delivered his rapid-fire monologue, inches from Reno's face. The redhead nodded vehemently – nervously, Nanaki might have said, had it not been a Turk under that hood – and shuffled a few steps back. Their prey and his companions stayed still, watched as Reno turned his back to them, but it wasn't until he had put several people between him and the alley that Nanaki allowed his coiled muscles to unwind.

And there Reno was, back on the balcony again, lazily swinging one long leg in front of the other as he strolled over to their table.

"The guy's selling something, all right," he muttered once he had dropped into his chair, "but whatever it is, he ain't selling to me."

"Did he figure out who you are?"

"Nah, don't think so. Guy like that would've pissed his pants if he realized he'd been mouthing off to a Turk."

Remembering his earlier curiosity, Nanaki drew in a breath as surreptitiously as possible. He smelled no fear, that much he could tell from the first whiff alone. Even Reno couldn't fake that.

"Then what does it mean?" he prompted. It was a genuine question, but he hoped the chatter would draw the Turk's attention away from his other attempts to investigate him.

"Guess it means their so-called miracle cure is so fucking useless that there's no point selling it to just any junkie looking for a fix. Might piss people off, y'know." He shrugged. "I'm just guessing here, though. Could be something else altogether. Only way to know for sure is to follow this fucker and see exactly what sorta shady business he gets up to when he thinks no one's looking."

As Reno talked, Nanaki observed him with both his ears and his nose. Nothing in the Turk's scent matched the skittish facade he had presented to the trio; that much was expected, but there was something else too, something that didn't fit. Intrigued, Nanaki probed with his senses. The tension in the man's body might have been the anticipation of the impending hunt, as might his quickened pulse. But there was something else – a look in his eyes as he surreptitiously glanced down at the alley, a hint of musk thickening his scent…

The Turk looked him over and raised an eyebrow.

"You got something to say to me, Furball?"

Far too late did Nanaki realize that the man had stopped talking some time ago. His tail sagged with the embarrassment of getting caught so easily, but his puzzlement had grown too strong to let go. He had picked up on the telltales of human desire in others before, but he had never paid much attention to where that desire was directed.

"That one... 'revs your engine' too?"

The Turk sucked in a breath just a little too quickly, but when he spoke, his drawl was as lazy as ever.

"Are you sniffing me again? 'Cause, y'know, I'm beginning to think you got some kinda messed-up kink going on there, buddy."

Flustered, Nanaki's ears instinctively tipped back at the scorn in Reno's voice.

"I simply heed my senses, that is all. That is the reason you _insisted_ on working with me, is it not?"

As an uncomfortable silence spread between them, Nanaki's tail slashed back and forth in a tense figure eight. If this would bring an end to their collaboration, then so be it. He owed allegiance to no Turk, and if this one disrespected his skills and his senses _one more_ –

"Do you go into heat?"

"What?" Nanaki sputtered.

"It's a simple question, ain't it?"

A smirk had arrived on the Turk's face. Nanaki's ears pressed flat against his skull.

"What makes you think I will answer such questions?"

"It's only fair. You already sniffed out more about my sex life than I'd ever have told ya."

"I only know what your body tells me. It is simple physiology."

"So's this, ain't it?"

Nanaki tried to come up with a counterargument, but failed.

"Sooo…?" the Turk asked, drawing out the word in a way that made Nanaki's whiskers twitch. "Do. Ya go. Into heat?"

The human would persist until he got an answer or a fight. Perhaps the former would bring this embarrassment to a quicker end.

"Of course not. I am male."

"Oh."

Another silence fell. After a few moments, Nanaki breathed out in quiet relief.

"You get horny though, right?"

"I am not discussing this with you!"

"'Course you do," the man continued, as though Nanaki had said nothing at all. "I mean, most people do. So, what do you do about it? I mean, with you being the only... Well, whatever you are."

"Nothing," Nanaki growled.

"Really? Nothing at all?"

"Is that so hard to believe? You claim to do nothing about it yourself, when you are 'just looking'."

"Yeah, but... That's different, ain't it?"

"How?"

"Well, not to rub it in or nothing, but for one thing I got a hot lil' lady at home. I mean, you don't even have hands. That's gotta suck."

Nanaki scoffed and looked away. "Less than being around you for two days."

"Grumpy, ain't ya? Fine. Ain't like I really wanna know, anyway."

"Then why did you ask?" he spat.

The Turk did not reply right away. The smirk on his face made Nanaki's tail flick harder; it was far too knowing, far too _satisfied_.

"Look who's talking. _You're_ the one who keeps sniffing _me_ all the time, and then you try to rub it in my face like _I'm_ the one who's done something wrong." Reno leaned forward over the table and pinned him with a steady look, every trace of his mocking smile gone. "Want your privacy respected? Start by respecting mine."

Nanaki stared at him, his tail frozen mid-slash. Then he dropped his gaze and bowed his head.

"Your point is taken."

The man straightened up and rolled back his shoulders.

"Good. Maybe we can focus on the damn job, then."

He looked down over the market. Nanaki kept his head bowed and his eye downcast, like the scolded cub he was. The humiliation burned hot beneath his skin – and he couldn't even blame the damned human across the table, no matter how much he wanted to. Worse yet, the man's talk of mates and… _other things_ had stirred something in him; an ache with no wound, one he couldn't Cure away.

"Dude's gone."

Nanaki looked up, startled out of his misery. Two men lurked in the alley now, not three.

"C'mon." Reno shoved back his chair and got up. "Time to put that nose of yours to _proper_ use."

With his tail held low, Nanaki followed.


	9. All That Glitters

**9\. All That Glitters**

* * *

Half an hour later, Nanaki found himself posted outside a dingy little diner on the northwestern outskirts of Edge. Their quarry sat inside by the window, stuffing his face with the plateful of eggs and fries in front of him. The red-maned Turk stood beside Nanaki, leaning against a buckled wall of corrugated steel.

"Times like this make me wish I'd never quit smoking. Seems so damn stupid to just hang around doing nothing."

They had positioned themselves at an angle behind their prey. He could have caught a glimpse of them, but to do so he would have to twist around in his chair. It seemed a needless precaution now, when the man was more than halfway through his dinner. So far, he had barely glanced up from his plate.

Meanwhile, not a minute had gone by without the Turk's commentary. He had complained about his shoes, their quarry's choice of meal, his growing hunger, the wall at his back. And now his tongue was waggling again.

"Hey, you guys live for ages, yeah? Like, centuries?"

"You are talking again?" Nanaki huffed, too exasperated to remain silent. "Are you not working?"

"C'mon, the guy's just shoveling food into his face right now. What else are we gonna do?"

Nanaki thumped his covered tail against the ground. He could have chosen to just ignore the man, as he had so far, but he too was nearing the limits of his patience – his restless tail was proof of that. His kind of hunt did not involve prolonged stalking like this.

"The answer is yes."

"Yeah? But if you live for fucking _centuries_ , how come there's so few of ya left?"

"The fact that we can does not mean that we will. We are a tribe of warriors, after all."

"I hear ya." With a sigh, the man let his head loll back against the metal wall. "I've only known a couple of Turks past forty."

"Do not compare noble guardians with _Turks_."

Nanaki's growl was met with silence at first. Then came a chuckle, low and quiet.

"Y'know, Furball... If you're gonna keep on fixating on all the ways your kind is different from mine, you're gonna have a long and lonely life ahead of you."

His tail stilled. His ears flattened against his skull as an almost-forgotten unease began gnawing at his heart.

"Perhaps I find a life alone more palatable than this kind of company."

"Suit yourself, yo."

The Turk said nothing more. Nanaki had expected it to be a relief, but he could no longer find his peace. He told himself it was the dirty looks of the passers-by, or the shadow of Midgar looming dead and empty at their backs, but the longer the pause stretched on, the sharper he felt the gnawing inside him, as if there were teeth in his belly that grew longer in the hush. Nanaki shifted his weight from one paw to another, but it did nothing to quell his discomfort.

"Turk." He paused, feeling foolish. Using the man's title hadn't sounded right at all.

"Yeah?" Reno said, with half-hearted interest.

Nanaki's mind stood still. He had blocked out the other's attempts at smalltalk so thoroughly, that none of the topics had taken root. A jolt of panic shot through him as he scrambled for something to say, until movement drew his eye back to the diner. Their quarry had pushed back his chair and risen to his feet.

"The man is leaving," he said quickly, relieved to offer that instead of whatever inanity he might have resorted to otherwise.

Reno looked up from his PHS, and slid it into his pocket when he spotted the man stepping into the street.

"Guess break time's over."

Reno didn't make any attempt to hide as they tailed their prey; he just kept his distance and his hood pulled over his head as they followed at a leisurely pace. The shadows from Midgar had grown long, cloaking this part of Edge in their gloom, but the murky streets were busy enough that Nanaki and Reno could keep several people between them and their quarry. The man slipped out of view a few times, but Nanaki's nose kept them on the right track.

As the crowds thinned, Nanaki was glad they had covered his tail. In the waning light, his flame would have drawn the eye of even the poorest observer. Their prey had grown more cautious too, casting the occasional glance over his shoulder as he ventured into a warren of plain buildings, much wider than they were tall. Warehouses, Nanaki guessed from their looks alone; the stink of Midgar's corpse was too strong here for him to tell what could be inside.

By contrast, the building the man eventually entered was little more than a shack made of corrugated steel, surrounded by a chainlink fence. The one who opened the door, bathing him in a cone of smoky light, greeted him with a clap on the shoulder. Nanaki caught snatches of a conversation from within before it was cut off by the closing door. In the shadowy gloom, he could barely make out the thin, white letters stenciled on it: they spelled out _Municipal Drain Maintenance_.

Reno motioned for him to follow and slunk across the street on nigh-silent feet. He clambered onto a dumpster outside the opposite warehouse, while Nanaki merely raised himself up with his front paws on the lid. The rough metal was cold under his feet, but it gave him a good enough view through the window of the shack. The blinds were down but cracked open; nestled safely in the shadows, he and the Turk watched as two men raised what appeared to be a metal hatch in the floor, while their quarry climbed down the hole.

"Now that looks real suspicious, don't it?" Reno muttered. "Makes me wanna take a quick look inside, see what they got stashed away down there."

Nanaki pricked his ears and judged what they told him against what he could see through the window: a muted clang as the remaining two let the hatch fall down, the rasp of plastic on concrete as they pulled back a couple of chairs on either side of a table by the window.

"We have surprise on our side," he mused as he watched the two pick up their handfuls of playing cards from the table. "Not to mention materia. It will be a quick fight."

"Nah, not this time, Furball."

"There are only three."

"Plus whoever else is down that hole." Reno squatted down on top of the dumpster, bringing his head level with Nanaki. "Thing is though, I don't wanna fight _any_ of 'em. If they see us, they'll know we've gotten too close for comfort. If we take 'em down, their friends will hear about it, 'cause this sure ain't a three man operation. They'll run and hide, and take their whole operation with 'em. We'd be back to square one."

Nanaki swished his tail in an irritated arc. These human hunts were far too complicated.

"Then what do you suggest?"

The Turk spent a few breaths surveying the shack and its surroundings.

"I say we sneak in and out real quick, leaving everyone standing and none the wiser. It's risky… but it might just be worth it if I can get my hands on their product."

"Impossible," Nanaki huffed. "The shack is tiny. We cannot get past all three without being seen."

"Then I guess we gotta go around them." A smile spread across the man's face as he stared at the text on the door. "C'mon, kitty cat," he said, hopping off the dumpster. "I might just know a backdoor into this place."

* * *

The Turk brought them to a narrow alley between a couple of nearby warehouses. He scanned their surroundings, then crouched down and stuck his fingers into the grille of a round manhole cover. With a groan, he lifted it out of its hole and dragged it aside.

"Fucking things weigh more than Titan's ass," he grumbled.

He reached into the hoodie's front pocket and pulled out a slim, black stick about twice as long as his fist. At first Nanaki thought it was a pen, but with the click of a button a beam of light shot out of one end, piercing the darkness below them. To his surprise, the stained concrete far below was dry. The air inside smelled musty like a damp cellar; hardly the stench of raw sewage he had expected.

"What is this passage?"

"Storm drain. Edge has a whole network of 'em."

Nanaki felt a funny dip in his gut as he stared down. His homeland had its fair share of sheer cliffs, but this inky abyss offered nothing to hold on to – except for a spindly ladder that was of no use to him.

"I cannot climb this," he muttered.

"You don't have to." Still squatting, the Turk twisted around and pointed down one end of the street they had arrived from. "Keep going down the road till you see a big-ass metal hatch on your left, sorta half lying down on top of something that looks like a concrete bunker. It's where the maintenance bots roll in, so it oughta work for you too. I'll meet you there."

"Can we not enter there instead?"

"Nah, the bots open it with some wireless signal. Don't have the tools for that with me, and the manual release is inside." The Turk patted the metal plate he had slid aside. "Push this back in place once I'm through, yeah?"

He clamped the flashlight between his teeth and maneuvered himself onto the ladder. Once only his head was above ground, he plucked the light from his mouth and grinned.

"Wish me luck, Furball."

"Try not to die."

"Ehh, close enough."

He put the light back between his grinning lips and disappeared from view. By the time Nanaki had stepped up for a peek into the hole, the man was halfway down the ladder. Once he had both feet on the ground he gave a thumbs-up, then jogged down the tunnel and out of sight.

Nanaki nudged the metal disc with a paw, but it didn't budge. He tried again, and again, each time using more force, until it scraped an inch across the asphalt.

"Damnation," he growled to himself, which became a long string of mental curses as he batted the disc back into place, ears drooped in humiliation. He fervently hoped no one had seen him, lured over by the racket as he swatted at the lid like an over-sized kitten with a toy.

He spotted the rendezvous point from a distance: from the side it looked like a concrete triangle of sorts, sloping toward the street. The slope contained a hatch, which slid aside as he approached. By the time he arrived the Turk was already waiting for him by the opened entrance, smiling smugly.

"Getting slow in your old age, Furball?"

Nanaki threw him a dirty look on his way in.

Beyond the hatch, a realm of mottled concrete curved around them in a rounded tunnel as far as the eye could see. Nanaki caught only a glimpse of it before the hatch rumbled shut behind him and robbed them of light. He tensed, and felt his feral instincts stir in response. He calmed them with a quick recital of balance – the Turk's plan required a balanced mind, not the restlessness of a beast ready to strike.

"Remove the bag," he commanded, raising his tail. "I need my flame."

With his flashlight wedged between his teeth, Reno freed the tail in short order. Nanaki held his flame high as they advanced, cocooning them in a warm, comforting glow that lit up several feet of concrete around them. The Turk's flashlight was harsh in contrast, a cold white beam cutting through the darkness far ahead. It caught the occasional flurry of movement, but Nanaki's other senses told him it was nothing worse than rats and bugs.

The cement was far rougher and cooler under his paws than the asphalt of Edge's streets. As they ventured farther in, it became damp and slick, coating the pads of his feet with a slimy film. The murky smell of old pond water was muddled here with stagnant Mako fumes and the eye-watering sting of chocobo droppings; the occasional rumble of traffic passing above made it clear where they had washed in from.

Nanaki and Reno followed the tunnel through several turns; by the time the Turk had steered them out of it and into the cavernous chamber beyond, Nanaki had thoroughly lost his sense of direction. He eyed the ranks of copper containers arrayed along the chamber, gleaming dully in the light of his flame. They were easily twice as tall as the human beside him, lined up side by side like soldiers.

"What are these?"

Reno panned his flashlight over the rounded bulk of the nearest tube. "Pretty sure they're water tanks for the storm drain system."

"You collect the rain? Why?"

"We have to, or the streets'll flood every time it rains for an afternoon. Ain't no rivers or lakes nearby, and the ground is too dead and dry to soak it up fast enough. Reeve's got some plans to filter it to make it drinkable, or to use it for replanting the badlands or something. Hasn't gotten around to it yet, though. Gotta finish building houses for everyone first, I guess."

As they crossed the chamber the air grew harsher. By the time they reached the other side, the potpourri of chemicals stung his nose with every breath. A metal gate barred the only exit from the chamber, held shut by a padlocked chain. Beyond it, Nanaki picked up the scents of several humans.

"Looks like we found the right place," the Turk mumbled under his breath, kneeling to inspect the padlock. "Smell anyone down there, Furball?"

"I smell too many," Nanaki muttered, whiskers twitching, "but I hear no one."

"Good enough for me. Lemme know if that changes."

The man poked his fingers through the holes in the gate and maneuvered the lock around, then brought out his lockpicks. Before long the lock snapped open and the chain slithered away with a quiet rattle. The groan of the gate echoed through the tunnels as Reno cracked it open – but nothing stirred.

"The topside hut is that way," Reno pointed down the right fork of the tunnel, "which means whatever they're hiding oughta be this way."

He ducked into the passage and headed left. Nanaki followed, keeping his tail low and every sense on highest alert. The chemicals made his skin prickle – or perhaps it was the memories they stirred. Hojo's laboratories had reeked of such chemicals, too.

The passage ended in a room so low that when Reno straightened up, his spiky hair brushed against the ceiling. One wall exposed a row of numbered valves, each with their own dials. A tangle of pipes with more valves snaked across another. A few mattresses took up most of the floor, each ripe with the smell of multiple human bodies.

"Heh," Reno said, keeping his voice low. "Guess these guys took the idea of 'underground operations' literally."

"They built all this?" Nanaki asked, eyeing the dials on the wall.

"Nah, pretty sure this is a pump station or something. Most of the system is automated. Reeve and his gadgets, y'know. Far as I know, people only show up here if there's a problem."

Reno picked his way across the room to another door and nudged it ajar, just enough for a peek. When he pushed it all the way open, the chemical stink washed over them in an acrid wave. The Turk strolled in, seemingly untroubled by the smell, and let out a low whistle.

"Looks like someone's been awfully busy down here."

Several worktables were pushed up against the walls, underneath the pipes and ticking meters of the pump station. The tables were laden with canisters and glassware that would have looked more at home in a laboratory, while what lay between the tables looked like junk: rusted gadgets, swathes of milky plastic, folded cardboard. In front of Nanaki, greyish slabs were stacked on top each other in a haphazard pile. Most of them were broken or unevenly cut, showing a crumbling layer of white between two gray sheets of stiff paper. He had seen similar slabs before, on some of the construction sites he had passed on his way into Edge.

"These look like construction materials."

"Drywall, yeah. Grind it up real fine and you've got yourself a cutting agent for a whole bunch of things."

Nanaki stared at the man. "Those words make no sense when placed together."

The Turk chuckled.

"Just means that one white powder looks much the same as another," he explained, peering into a dented barrel which had once contained fuel, judging by the whiff of Mako that still wafted up from it. "Mix a cheap one in with the one that people will pay for, and suddenly you've got twice as much to sell."

"One deception after another," Nanaki growled. "Then this Glimmer you seek… It is a powder?"

"Dunno for sure 'til I see it, but probably, yeah. In any case, I think it's safe to say that whatever they're cooking up down here, it sure ain't legal." Reno scanned their surroundings as he reached into a pocket. "Keep looking. I'll call it in, let the others know what–" He frowned as he looked at the screen of his PHS. "Goddammit. No signal."

"Then we are on our own," Nanaki concluded.

"Yeah, so we'd best cut this short before we run into trouble." He raised his head and sniffed. "Think you could pick up that smell in town? Hunt these guys down that way?"

" _Which_ smell? I sense dozens of chemicals here, many of them ones you humans commonly use."

"Shit. Okay, let's look around real quick before we go. Maybe they got some of the finished product lying around."

"What do I seek, exactly?"

The Turk spread his arms.

"Gotta hope we'll know it when we see it. Just call me over if you see something you don't recognize, yeah?"

Nanaki huffed. Pretty much any of the plastic canisters on the table fit the bill. They all had different labels, though, and the way they were stacked up among the tools suggested they were part of the manufacturing process. Whatever these humans were making down here would likely be gathered somewhere else, ready to distribute to their dealers–

The rasp of a zipper scattered his thoughts. The Turk had squatted down by one of two canvas bags, tucked in under one of the worktables, and was spreading it open. He grinned.

"Bingo."

He pulled something out from the bag and brought it under the light. It was a plastic bag, Nanaki saw as he came closer, roughly the size and shape of a brick; filled to the seams with a white powder and secured with wide strips of brown tape.

"Heh. Ain't too hard to guess where the name comes from."

As Reno tilted the package to and fro under the lamp, the powder inside caught the light and shimmered like freshly fallen snow, but in all the colors of the rainbow.

"There's more of it here." He dragged a fingertip along the worktable beside them and held it under the light. His skin shimmered, coated in a thin layer of dust. "Y'know what this looks like to me?"

"The way it reflects the light," Nanaki mumbled, watching the glittering display. "Like tiny crystals."

"Yeah. And guess what's got a shiny crystal shell?" He rubbed his fingertips together, spreading the dust thinner. "Materia."

"What?"

"Would explain why they're so hellbent on stealing it, yo."

"You mean…" Nanaki stared at the man's shimmering fingers, then at the worktable before them. Tools were lined up along the wall: mortars, pestles, hammers. "Why would anyone think of such a thing?"

The Turk set down the trussed-up package on the table and used a fingernail to scrape at the brown tape that sealed it up.

"I'm guessing the whole thing started with Shinra's materia." He spoke slowly, more focused on teasing the tape off the plastic. "We used a man-made casing to make 'em. More brittle than the real deal, easy to crack, and once that happens the damn things go weak enough to be useless... Midgar had to be full of broken ones after Meteor."

"So... These dealer humans found a new use for the ones that were broken?"

Reno brought out a knife and flicked it open, then made a small cut in the plastic underneath the tape he had pulled back.

"Yeah," he said, using the blade of his knife to scoop some of the powder into a smaller, resealable bag. "They may be useless, but they still glitter all pretty-like. 'Magic you can snort' oughta make a nice lil' sales pitch for the sick and desperate."

"But the collector must have had functional materia. Proper natural ones."

"Sure. Only so much broken shit to go around after all, since Shinra ain't around to make more." Reno smoothed down the tape, covering the cut he had made, and looked over the glittering table. "After Meteor, with all the anti-materia campaigns, I wouldn't be surprised if there's more gil in selling it this way."

"Do they not know that destroying the orb releases the magic within? If you crush a Cure, all of its healing powers vanish for good!"

"Something tells me these guys don't care, kitty cat."

"Humans," he growled.

The Turk chuckled dryly as he pocketed his prize.

"Y'know, at times like this I sure feel the same."

A bang echoed through the tunnels, followed by the bellow of rowdy voices.

"Shit," he hissed. "Back the way we came. Move!"

He threw the taped package into the bag he had taken it from and yanked the zipper shut, then dashed back to the door – only that led them straight toward the voices, which were rapidly growing louder. The newcomers must have passed the entrance to the storm drains by now. As Nanaki loped down the passage at the Turk's heels, he recited a battle chant that never failed to bring his blood to a boil. His feral side answered with a howl that struck him like thunder; his limbs grew faster, stronger, infused with its might.

They turned a corner and came face to face with their foes. Alone, the Turk might have been able to duck back into the shadows, but the motley crew that blocked their way spotted Nanaki's flaming tail in an instant. As the tunnel echoed with their surprised shouts and the sharp hiss of weapons being drawn, Reno raised his hand.

"Sleep!"

He was _fast_ ; Nanaki barely had time to sense a shift in the air before the spell struck their enemies like hidden lightning. Two of them fell, three did not – magically protected, most likely.

"Don't engage!" the Turk yelled, already sprinting toward the trio. "Keep running!"

He feinted and ducked to the side as the closest one lunged for him, and smacked the man in the back with his mag rod. The tunnel lit up with a crackling blue flash, but Reno didn't pause to check its effect; as the second goon recoiled from his electrocuted comrade, Nanaki leapt over the bodies on the ground and bowled him down. His feral side roared in triumph, but the joy was more profound than mere victory – he had taken down many a man and beast in his travels, but rarely had he had the visceral thrill of hunting in a pack.

The third yelped and flattened himself against the wall. Reno dashed past him and vanished into the darkness. Nanaki's inner beast railed at the thought of fleeing, not to mention leaving an enemy at his back, but enough of his wits remained to remember the Turk's plan. He took off, following Reno's echoing footsteps – but as he swept past the last man standing, the goon swung the metal pipe in his hand. The end of it was hooked like an L, and the blunted point of it bashed into Nanaki's thigh with a sickening thud. He snarled as the impact threw him sideways, but the next second he was back on his feet and running again.

But not for long. With every push of his hind legs the pulsing heat in his thigh intensified, until not even his beastly rage could keep it at bay. His speed slowed as the strength drained from his leg; by the time he reached the rain-water reservoirs, he was clearly limping. The footsteps he was following had receded into the distance ahead; all he heard now were the rapid steps approaching from behind.

He couldn't outrun his hunter, not like this. And he couldn't hide with a flaming tail signaling his every move.

Nanaki stopped and spun around. His pursuer was the one who had struck him down, rushing at him with bared teeth and iron rod held high. Nanaki stared him right in the eye as he called upon the materia in his cuffs. The mounting energy gathered in a frigid coil around him, siphoning the warmth from his very bones.

"Ice!" he snarled.

The man stumbled to a sudden halt as the magical frost raced up his legs, numbing them into uselessness. He collapsed, crawling backward on his elbows, shrieking and smacking at his clothes, as if that might halt the advancing freeze. Nanaki wheeled around and forced his aching body back into a limping run. As he entered the tunnel, the man's panicked cries cut off abruptly behind him; the spell had reached its end.

It had also taken its toll on Nanaki. It was a cost he would normally shrug off, but now that he was battered and broken, the weakness seemed to sink straight into his throbbing leg. His limp worsened, but he couldn't afford hopping around on three legs. Reno had already vanished beyond his sight; it was only a matter of time before the man would go beyond all his senses.

Something in Nanaki's injured leg tore and snapped. Agony spiked up his thigh, piercing up into his spine, and his hind legs buckled under him. He snarled and tried to fight through it, to force his limbs to obey, but the pain had locked his muscles into a rigid cramp he could not break. Another spasm robbed him of his balance and he keeled over onto his side, yowling, twitching uselessly on the cold, rough concrete.

Someone approached him at a run, loomed over him. A human, raising a weapon. Nanaki howled and lashed out at the two-legged thing, claws bared – or he _tried_ , but his limbs refused to listen.

"You're okay, Furball. You're okay. I got ya."

The voice, urgent but familiar, penetrated the haze of his agony and tugged at the ragged edge of his wits. The human was a Turk. The rod in his hand glowed green, and its light flowed over Nanaki, washing away his pain in a warm wave of healing energy.

Not _a_ Turk, he remembered as his mind broke free of the pain _. The_ Turk. Reno.

"You good? Can you hear me now?"

Nanaki felt dizzy, still reeling from the clash between his instincts and his sense. Before he could come up with a reply, Reno shot to his feet and stared down the tunnel. His frown deepened.

"You hear that?"

At first Nanaki could hear nothing over his own huffing breaths. Then he noticed a hum, like the distant drone of a thousand voices.

"Sounds like… a river?"

"Oh, _fuck_ ," Reno breathed. "C'mon, get up. We gotta move!"

The hum had already grown to a roar, louder than the pounding of his blood in his ears. He could feel it too, singing through the concrete under him as he scrambled to his feet.

"What is this?"

"The rain tanks!" Reno shouted, already running. "They're flushing 'em out!"

And then Nanaki could smell it. Musty and swampy, sharpened by moldy things, soured by slimy things; all of it slapped into his face in a violent rush of air. He spun around and fled down the tunnel.

Reno was far ahead of him; only his whipping hands and soles of his shoes were visible against the darkness. When he scrambled to a sudden stop and veered left, Nanaki couldn't see why – until he came close enough to spot the indentation in the wall and the metal ladder inside it.

"C'mon!" the Turk yelled, waving him in. "Up here!"

"I can't climb that!" Rising panic squeezed Nanaki's throat and turned his reply into a snarl. Reno could leave, could leave him down here–

"You fucking have to! If you don't, we're–"

They both whipped their heads around as a torrent of churning water burst around the bend and surged toward them.

"Run!"

Nanaki was already moving. His paws barely touched the ground as he ran, yet he could hear the roar of the water grow louder with every bound. Reno kept pace with him for several seconds, but then Nanaki began to inch ahead. He glanced over his shoulder, looking for the man, but instead he saw a wall of roiling darkness–

–and the darkness swallowed him, swallowed them both, and swept them away.


	10. A Fork in the Road

**10\. A Fork in the Road**

* * *

Nanaki felt cold. Wet and cold, and all his limbs pulsed with a dull ache. He cracked his eye open, but saw nothing, nothing at all. His heart thumped hard.

Then he noticed bright little pinpricks above him, dozens of them; no, _hundreds_ of them. Stars. The open sky.

He gasped and pawed at the ground, trying to get his feet under him. It was damp and hard, but crumbled under his claws. Badlands soil, he realized as he got to his feet and spotted the bright lights of a city in the distance. Edge's lights.

A bulky shadow loomed against the sky, and within it gaped a circular hole, darker than the night itself. It had to be the mouth of the tunnel the stormwater had swept them through.

Them. Had swept _them_.

"Reno!" Nanaki roared, turning his head every which way. No one replied, but he spotted something pale in the starlight, bright against the darkness. A hand, he recognized as he bounded closer.

"Reno?"

The man didn't reply and remained still, curled up on his side. Nanaki nudged him with a paw, but got no reaction. He lowered his head to Reno's chest, and sighed in relief when he detected the faint thudding of a heart. He nudged a bit harder.

The man flinched, and erupted in a fit of coughs. He clawed at the ground, hacking and sputtering, until he could draw breath again.

"Ow, fuck," he rasped, his chest heaving with ragged gasps. "My fucking… _everything_."

Never had Nanaki been happier to hear the man speak.

"Are you all right?"

"Sure… More or less." Reno grimaced as he pushed himself up on his knees and pressed a hand to his side. "Fuck, can't believe we both got through that alive." He wiped his cheek with the back of his hand, streaking his face with mud.

"We should leave," Nanaki muttered. "The badlands are not safe at night."

"Yeah, yeah." He reached into his drenched hoodie and pulled out his PHS. "Just let me–" He frowned, jabbing the keys harder, but the phone remained dark. "Ah, hell."

"Mine has likely met the same fate." To Nanaki's surprise, he feel something twist inside his chest. Never would he have imagined that he would miss the device.

"Then we gotta get moving," Reno growled, struggling to his feet. "We've already wasted too much time."

Nanaki fell in beside him, and side by side they limped toward the lights of Edge.

* * *

Nanaki sat on the sidewalk of a dark street, his tail curled around his paws. His flame lit up the payphone booth beside him, along with the Turk inside it. Reno had just finished giving a tired report over the phone.

"Nah, gonna sit this one out." A pause. "I'm fuckin' exhausted, that's what I am. I just wanna head home, kick back for an evening, and get a decent night's sleep for once. That too much to ask?"

He was speaking with another Turk, Nanaki presumed. The last time he had found himself entangled in Turk business, there had been four of them. As far as he knew, that was still the case.

"Sure," Reno said into the phone. "Get Laney to pick us up first, will ya? And lemme know if you find anything."

He shoved his way out of the booth and dropped to sit on the ground. He planted his hands behind himself and arched his upper body with a groan. Filthy water dripped off the creases in his clothes and pattered softly on the pavement.

"Tseng's gonna make some calls, get the ball rolling," he said, settling into his usual slump. "Plans to hit the place before midnight."

"So. It is done."

"Don't get your hopes up, Furball."

Puzzled, Nanaki tilted his head.

"But our hunt was successful. We found their hideout."

Reno's sigh seemed to deflate his whole being.

"Wanna know why I ain't interested in heading back there? 'Cause it's a goddamn waste of time. They'll have cleared out by the time Tseng's rounded up enough people to take 'em down. Ain't gonna be nothing left to find."

Of course. It had taken them a while to find a payphone that worked, once it became clear that their own phones had drowned. Why would any quarry lie down and wait for its hunter? And human prey was cunning, capable of hiding their tracks. These humans had done so at every turn; they would no doubt do it now.

"Thwarted again," Nanaki growled.

"More like I made the wrong call back there." With another sigh, Reno leaned back on his elbows. "Should've set up a team, spent a week or two staking the place out, tailing everyone…" He shook his head slowly. "But that's pretty much wishful thinking these days. Ain't like we got the people for that kind of op. Shinra ain't what it used to be."

"Then we went through all that for nothing?" It was almost a snarl. Nanaki's heart was still thrumming in his chest; his limbs trembled with the desire to spring, to rake. After a battle of such intensity, he needed more than a few hasty recitals to return to his balance.

"Hey, it wasn't a complete wash." Reno reached into the front pocket of his sodden hoodie and pulled out the small plastic bag he had filled in the Glimmer den. "Got a few faces out of it, too," he mumbled as he held it up for inspection. "Shouldn't be too hard to find the names that belong to 'em." The bag's contents glittered in neon green, reflecting the fluorescent light of a nearby sign. "Sure is pretty, huh? No wonder people wanna believe it's their very own lil' miracle."

It was no Cosmo Candle, but the play of light held his eye, and now that the Turk was silent, Nanaki could hear his own thoughts again. He fixed his eye on the bag of Glimmer, and fixed his mind on one of his longer after-battle verses. He inspected the shape of each word before he let it pass, soothing his restless mind with their familiarity, until he had regained enough of his equilibrium to reflect upon their meaning.

"What's on your mind?"

Nanaki blinked repeatedly, needing a moment to emerge from his meditation.

"Excuse me?"

Reno was still reclining on his elbows, but he was watching Nanaki instead of the bag.

"Looked like you were thinking pretty hard."

"I was not thinking. I was reciting."

"Yeah?" He slipped the bag back into his jacket. "Reciting what?"

"The verses my mother taught me, as her mother taught her. We recite them after hunts and battles. Before, too, when we get the opportunity. They are our way of separating the beast from the being of rational thought."

"Huh." Reno pushed himself up from his half-reclined position, only to place his elbows on his thighs instead, hunching over his knees. "Why don't you say them out loud? I wanna hear them."

His question gave Nanaki pause. He had given the man a glimpse of his ways, and he had done so without a second thought. It was a courtesy he had shown only a few outside of Cosmo Canyon.

But where was the harm in that? This one had fought by his side and come to his aid, just like his friends from his AVALANCHE days. He had proven himself worthy of such a glimpse.

 _Only_ a glimpse, though.

"They are only spoken out loud when passed from teacher to student," Nanaki explained.

"Don't suppose there's any chance you wanna teach me, huh?"

"No." Not so long ago it would have been a growl. Now it was a statement; firm, but neutral.

Reno didn't respond in words, for once; he merely hummed, staring down one end of the street. Nanaki looked down the other. Not in anger or dismay, but as an act of cooperation, to keep watch over his half of their temporary territory. It happened so instinctively that he didn't realize he had taken his eye off the Turk until several minutes had passed in silent vigil.

"Y'know," Reno said after a while, keeping his voice low, "that time back in Cosmo Canyon all those years ago... It was just business. You know that, right? Wasn't personal."

Nanaki glanced his way. The man was still watching his end of the street.

"Perhaps it should have been."

"Still wanna hold on to that grudge, huh?"

"You misunderstand." As Reno looked his way, Nanaki locked eyes with him. "If you had seen me as a _person_ , would you have been so quick to take me captive? Would you have brought me to Midgar, and to your Shinra scientists?"

Reno was the first to look away.

"Point taken," he said quietly.

Silence fell between them once again, but Nanaki struggled to regain his focus. Perhaps it had been a mistake to mention Shinra's scientists. He pricked his senses, seeking refuge in the physical reminders of his reality. The street was still, but not completely quiet. Something rustled softly in a nearby alley; a cat, his nose told him. A breeze had picked up, brushing past his damp fur in cool caresses. He welcomed the chill, used it to ground himself in the present, as his grandfather had taught him.

The distant purr of an engine made him look up. A few seconds later Reno perked up, too.

"Sure hope that's Laney," he grumbled, clambering to his feet, "'cause I'm sick of sitting in a goddamn puddle."

It wasn't long before a black car appeared at the end of the street and rolled to a smooth halt beside them. The driver's window slid down, revealing a blonde woman frowning in a Turk suit. She took one look at her colleague and groaned.

"Dammit, Reno, you'll ruin the upholstery again."

" _I'll_ ruin it? I ain't the only one soaked to the bone here, and at least _I_ don't smell like wet dog."

"True," Nanaki remarked. "You smell like wet carpet."

"Screw you too, Furball."

Reno was smiling, though, as he held the back door open. Nanaki clambered onto the plush seat, keeping his head hunched to avoid smacking into the ceiling. Fortunately, he had the back all to himself. It was hard enough to fit all his limbs and tail into the vehicle as it was.

"Take us to the safe house," Reno told the woman as he took a seat in the front. "I ain't riding all the way to the Cliff like this."

"With pleasure," she said, wrinkling her nose. "Dare I ask what happened?"

Reno launched into one of his colorful accounts. Nanaki listened with only half an ear, reserving his attention for the scenery instead. Elena drove in a wide curve around the outskirts of the city, avoiding the busier streets near the plaza. As they moved out of Midgar's shadow, the rust of repurposed rebar and corrugated iron gave way to slabs of blotchy concrete, until they reached the smooth stucco and sleek glass facades of the Edge's younger districts. Most of them hadn't existed at all the last time Nanaki visited Edge.

Elena parked outside the building where Nanaki and Reno had spent the previous night. At the apartment, Reno made a beeline for the bedroom. Nanaki took a few steps inside before he stopped, unsure of what to do with himself while he waited. The fair-maned Turk came up beside him, and a few awkward seconds passed as they stared at each other. They had fought side by side too, once; she, Reno and the one called Cissnei. Nanaki had no personal reason to dislike Elena – but her Turk suit stood between them like a wall.

"Well. Reno will need this." She set down a keyring with a single key on the table in the middle of the room. "I hope he isn't in too much of a hurry to get home. For your sake, I mean, in case he's giving you a ride after this."

"Excuse me?"

"He's not the most cautious driver at the best of times. Being stuck in the car when he's in a rush…" She shuddered theatrically.

Nanaki tilted his ears forward politely, then remembered that this one was not familiar with his language. He pulled back his lips in a smile. She responded with a smile of her own, though it looked stiff. Perhaps he had shown too much teeth.

"Hey, Laney," Reno called from the bedroom. "Any idea where all the combs have gone?"

"Oh, I think... they're, um–"

Nanaki looked over at the bedroom as she trailed off. Reno stood in the doorway, without his suit. Without most of his clothes, in fact, leaning on the doorframe in all his hairless glory.

Elena was still staring. She dipped her wide eyes down below his waist – and slapped her hands over her mouth as she burst into a fit of giggles.

"Aw, that's real nice, Laney." With a sour look, Reno folded his arms over his chest. "Way to crush a guy's confidence."

"Tess lets you out of the house in those?" she choked out between snorts of laughter, pointing at his boxers. Chocobos in all the colors of the rainbow darted this way and that across the pale blue fabric.

"Shut up," he grumbled. "She's the one who got 'em for me."

"I'm sorry." She cleared her throat, still shaking with contained laughter as she wiped her eyes. "It was just so... unexpected."

"Heh. You should see what Tseng wears, then."

He grinned and winked, then vanished from view. When Nanaki looked back at Elena, her face had gone bright red.

"I'll, um... I'll leave you guys to it. I need to team up with, uh... Tseng for this drug lab strike. Someone has to mop up after you two, after all." She gave an awkward little laugh.

"Good hunting."

The woman was already scurrying for the door. Once she had gone, Nanaki sat down on his haunches to wait. Peace at last. He seized the opportunity to reflect on one of his verses, but his mind would not focus. The longer the silence stretched on, the less it felt like the peace he had hoped for; only more room for that restless being that was gnawing at the hollow in his chest.

It had shrunk away for a while, when he and the Turk had fought like brothers. His beastly side had chased it off, kept it at bay with mightier fangs and claws. That feral half had lain dormant for some time already, while he spent time with first one, then two Turks; yet the gnawing had kept its distance, too. Until now, when he sat alone.

Nanaki recognized it. He had felt its presence before, when he left the villagers of Cosmo Canyon; when he left the ninja girl and set out on this quest of his. He had not thought it so weak that it could be driven out by a pair of Turks. As his own strength waned, did this gnawing monster inside him grow feeble too, with only a weakling like him to feed on? Because he must have weakened, to find such comfort among Turks.

But was it weakness? Had Reno not proved himself a worthy brother in battle, once again? Nanaki thought of the man's confession as they sat side by side, each content to let the other guard his back. Humans led such short, fickle lives, their minds and hearts plagued by mercurial change – but that also meant they were able to reinvent themselves in ways his people were not. Perhaps the Turk getting dressed in the next room was no longer the one Nanaki had first met in Cosmo Canyon all those years ago.

Nanaki flicked his ears in wry amusement. Such ambivalent thinking. Perhaps his decades with the humans had infected him with their proclivity for changed opinions.

The bedroom door opened and out came Reno, fully dressed in a Turk suit.

"Laney left already?" He chuckled. "Aw, didn't mean to scare her off."

"Scare her...?"

"Heh, nevermind, Furball. There's something else that occurred to me just now. This materia you're after, the, um–" Reno snapped his fingers at Nanaki.

"Enemy Skill."

"Yeah, that one. If these guys are grinding up any materia they get their hands on... Well, chances are the one you're after is nothing but a pile of sparkly dust by now."

Nanaki's tail sank to the floor.

"Then this hunt has been pointless."

"I wouldn't say that, Furball."

Nanaki looked up at him and tilted his head. The Turk stood before him with his hands deep in his pockets, sizing him up with a thoughtful look.

"Plenty of good people in this town," he said. "People who could use a guardian, yo."

"What do you mean?"

"I gotta hunt this Glimmer gang down before they make life miserable for more poor bastards. Could use a hand." Reno smiled. "Or a paw."

It had not occurred to Nanaki that their cooperation could end so soon. He felt a pang in his chest as the monster inside sunk its fangs into him. Its jaws had grown stronger.

But there was another power on offer here, a strength that was found in numbers. It would be foolish to shun it. Guardians were not meant to carry out their duties alone, after all.

Nanaki raised his head and puffed out his chest.

"Very well," he said solemnly.

"Cool." Reno grinned at him. "So, Furball, got any plans tonight?"

"No."

"How about you come back to the Cliff with me, then? Uh, I mean Healen. Whatever."

Nanaki studied him warily. The man's body contradicted his casual tone, but this time it hinted not at deception, but awkwardness.

"Why?"

"Dinner, I guess? Or drinks, if your kind goes for booze." He gave Nanaki a curious look. "Do ya?"

"Are you joking?"

Reno rolled his eyes.

"Oh c'mon, Furball, don't give me that look. It ain't a date or anything. Just thought it'd be fun for you and Fitz to hang out for a bit."

"Oh." Nanaki's ears drooped in embarrassment. He had known the two of them lived together; Tess had told him so herself. He just couldn't… _picture_ it, and so it kept slipping his mind. "In that case, I accept."

"Awesome." Reno snatched up the keys the other Turk had left on the table. "Off we go, then."

The car waited for them where they had left it. Nanaki climbed into the backseat again, wrinkling his nose. The seats were damp with the wastewater he and Reno had leaked into them on the way over, and now he understood Elena's protests.

"Mind if we make a quick stop on the way?" Reno asked as he got into the driver's seat. "Got something I gotta pick up before we leave town."

"I do not mind."

Reno pulled over somewhere on the outskirts of Edge. Nanaki wasn't paying much attention; the day's excitement had taken a toll on his body, and his head had begun to feel awfully heavy. He roused briefly when the Turk returned, though, and raised his head to peek into the bag Reno had dropped in the empty front seat. It contained a heart-shaped box, no larger than his paw. Three words were embossed on the lid in gracefully curved letters.

"Hearts of Gold," he read out loud. Underneath was a picture of a pair of chocolate hearts, one of them covered in golden foil.

"Uh huh. Ever tried 'em?"

"No."

"They're all right. Could use a lil' more sugar, if you ask me. Fitz loves 'em, though. Anything made of chocolate will put a smile on her face, but these are her faves. Every time we come into town, she makes us drop by that place."

Nanaki expected the idle chatter would continue as Reno steered the car back into traffic. Instead the man went quiet. The silence wasn't complete, though; Reno's fingers drummed restlessly on the steering wheel.

"Hey," he said after a while. "Do me a favor, will ya? Don't tell Fitz what you sniffed out today. About me, I mean."

It took Nanaki a few moments to drag his eyes open again and puzzle out what Reno could have meant.

"Are you referring to your hyperactive 'engine'?"

"Heh. It ain't _that_ hyperactive for us humans, y'know. But it's to do with that, yeah. And, y'know... That guy."

Nanaki studied him as best as he could from the backseat. The man's fidgeting was full of anxious energy, but after all the situations Nanaki had seen him waltz through without a second thought, he couldn't conceive of what might leave Reno so unsettled.

"But I can tell her about the women?"

"Please don't," Reno groaned, rubbing his forehead. "That ain't the point here, anyway. I mean, she knows I'm into women, for, y'know, obvious reasons. That I'm into dudes too, well..." He let out a long sigh. "That might give her more of a surprise."

"You have not told her?"

"Ain't like I'm hiding it or anything. It just..." He shrugged. "Hasn't come up."

"If you are not hiding anything, then why do you wish me to say nothing?"

Reno responded with a dry chuckle. "Well, y'know. She's already got plenty of reasons to ditch my ass. Don't wanna give her another one just yet."

Nanaki tilted his head to the side. "Is that customary among humans?"

"It was a joke, Furball." Reno's grin was barely there, though, and his fingers resumed their restless dance on the wheel. "But, y'know… People can get funny about it sometimes."

"If it is that important, she should know."

"I guess," he sighed. "Look, all I'm asking is that you let me handle it. This kinda stuff is private for us humans, okay?"

"Humans make everything complicated."

"Tell me about it. People get all sorts of weird about sex." He snorted, then glanced at Nanaki in the rearview mirror. "I guess it's more straightforward with your kind, what with all the sniffing you do?"

Nanaki's ears sank down. His stomach felt like it was sinking, too.

"I… would not know."

Reno smirked at him in the mirror. "Haven't been around much, have ya?"

"I have not had many opportunities," Nanaki mumbled, his ears drooping lower. He'd had none, to be precise. He had shared the canyon with one other of his kind until only a few years ago, but he had been too young to grasp the uncomfortable realities of the two of them being the last of their people. He still was, really, but thoughts about their future had begun to creep in at times. Fumbling, uncertain thoughts, turned especially awkward by the fact that she would be lost to him for many decades still, dreaming on behalf of the Planet. All Nanaki had to go on were his memories of years ago, and those were mostly of her scolding his lack of a backbone. The thought of their eventual reunion filled him more with dread than joy.

"There were two of ya some years back," Reno said, as if he could read Nanaki's thoughts. "You telling me you never hit that?"

"I was forty-six years old!" When the man gave him a blank look, Nanaki added, "Not even fifteen by your human years."

Reno stared at him for several beats, silent and unmoving.

"You're shitting me."

Nanaki narrowed his eye.

"I had no idea." Reno raked a hand through his mane, bringing it to a halt around his thin tail of hair. "Oh shit, that's gotta mean you're still a teenager, huh? Ifrit's ass, now I feel like a creep."

Little by little, Nanaki's ears began to rise.

"You claim you are _not_ a 'creep'?"

"Hey, I ain't some dirty old man who wants to freak out the kids with pervy talk! Shiva's tits, I thought you were older than me!"

Nanaki thumped his tail into the back of Reno's seat.

"I am not a 'kid'."

"That's exactly what every teen ever would say," Reno groaned. "Great. Fitz is gonna kill me."

Nanaki's ears finally tipped forward.

"Only if I tell her."

Reno studied Nanaki through the mirror, squinting with suspicion.

"Is that blackmail or a friendly offer?"

"The latter." Nanaki pulled back his lips in his version of a smile. "For now."


	11. An Old Friend

**11\. An Old Friend**

* * *

The first half of the drive took them through the flat nothing of the badlands; Nanaki spent most of it stretched out on the backseat, dozing as best he could. He perked up once the elevation changed, signaling their entry into the cliffs south of Edge. The dirt road snaked and twisted its way up the mountainside, often along the brink of a yawning drop at one side or the other, where the mountain had given way and left a broken tumble of boulders in its wake. Occasionally the trees would part and Nanaki would catch the silver flash of a stream, weaving down the jagged rock.

About halfway up the cliffs, they came to a cluster of buildings that made Nanaki think of weathered bones, worn white and smooth by sun and wind. Reno parked the car in the lee of the largest of these and opened the door for Nanaki, who leapt out with restless impatience. The shadows had grown long and cast a chill upon everything in their path, but Nanaki suspected that even in full daylight the cliffs would never come close to the parched and dusty heat of Edge. Every breath of air here tasted like an invitation, a lush potpourri of scents that called him to explore the untamed hills beyond the human settlement.

Much to Nanaki's delight, Reno led him away from the buildings and through a thicket of trees, along a path softened by a thick blanket of pine needles. The path brought them to another building in the same style, though this one was smaller than the others Nanaki had seen. Near the corner of this house, a woman kneeled over a bed of flowers, yanking up weeds with gusto. Reno slowed to a halt and whistled.

"Now that's a real nice view, yo."

She sat back on her heels and looked over her shoulder, an eyebrow arched.

"I _assume_ you're referring to my fine garden."

"Uh, sure." Grinning, Reno lifted his gaze from her behind to her face. "Brought someone over for dinner, by the way."

She brightened with a smile as he spoke; she had already caught sight of her visitor.

"Nanaki!"

"Hello, Tess." Nanaki inclined his head in greeting.

He observed her movements as she scrambled onto her feet and brushed the dirt off her knees. She had dressed to leave her slender limbs bare, except for the black sleeve that protected one arm all the way down to her hand. Only the tips of her fingers were exposed. He kept a careful eye on that arm and inhaled her scent as she approached. To his relief, he sensed no pain.

She dropped to one knee and flung her good arm around his neck. Nanaki obliged, waving his tail back and forth in a lazy arc. This close, her scent was strong beneath the sun and soil on her skin. It had always held a peculiar trace that set her apart from other humans, but the differences were so minute that it was like spotting a raven among the crows. He had paid it no mind at first; not until he had learned of her origins.

"It's so good to see you!" She laughed as she let him go. "I heard you were in town, but didn't think you'd come all the way up here."

"This one is persuasive," he said with a glance at the man beside them.

"Impossible to shake, more like," she quipped, smiling at Reno.

"C'mon, Fitz, be nice in front of our guest. Speaking of nice, tho', you got one of those for me too?"

With an even wider smile, she straightened up and wound her arms around the man's neck, and he pressed his lips to hers. Another oddity of human interaction, Nanaki mused, waiting patiently for them to finish their greeting ritual. Mercifully, no one had tried to inflict that one on him.

The pair led the way into their lodge, walking side by side. His mane long and red, Nanaki noted idly, and hers short and brown. In this one thing, they resembled his people. Funny how much comfort could be found in a detail that adhered to the natural order of things.

The front door led into an airy room, twice as long as it was wide, with pale walls and a wooden floor that felt smooth under Nanaki's paws. To the left was an open kitchen, to the right a living area; but it was a square table pushed up against the opposite wall that drew his attention. A heady aroma, of red meat complicated with spices, wafted up from the porcelain dish on top of it.

"It's meatloaf tonight," Tess said. "Sorry, I know it's not exactly your favorite. If I'd known you were coming over..."

Humans were so obsessed with ruining their meat with fire. Nanaki suspected it had something to do with teeth. The tiny blunt things they had in their mouths could not be much use for, well, _anything_.

"It is fine. I am grateful to you." He could always have a look around later. Might be mountain goats in these hills.

"Smells way better than fine to me," Reno called, lifting the lid of the dish. "Hey, you ain't gonna dish it up by size, are ya?"

"What would you suggest?" Tess asked. "Appetite?"

"Only fair, ain't it?"

"Well, it does make the two of you more evenly matched," she said, chuckling.

Reno pulled up a third chair and placed it by the unoccupied side of the table. He had lost one layer of clothing somewhere along the way, leaving just the white shirt to flutter about his slim frame.

"Here ya go, Furball," he said, patting the table in front of the chair. "Have a seat."

As Nanaki tested the chair's stability with his front paws, Reno flitted over to the kitchen cupboards and collected a stack of plates and glasses.

"How was work, babe?"

"Frustrating," Tess sighed as she brought out a bowl from the fridge. "I swear, it's like the cells know what we're trying to accomplish and do everything they can to screw it up."

"Heh, sounds like my day. Only, y'know… with bad guys instead of Stigma cells."

"The case is still giving you trouble?"

"Nah, I think we're getting somewhere now." He winked at Nanaki as he placed a plate in front of him. "Ain't we, Furball?"

"Perhaps."

Reno laughed. "Keep those happy thoughts coming, kitty cat."

Nanaki tipped his ears forward, content to leave the verbalizing to his hosts and just observe them as they prepared the meal. He had not seen Tess for months. They had kept in touch over PHS, but this was their first meeting in person since she had moved to this remote place. The idea of venturing so deep into Shinra territory had been too unnerving.

This house wasn't Shinra territory, though. It was hers – and Reno's. The man seemed to have shed his Shinra demeanor along with the jacket. He hovered near her like one of the planets around the sun in Nanaki's grandfather's observatory, ready to unscrew lids and untie knots before she could think to ask. Nanaki recognized the courtesy of the Cosmo Canyon villagers, always prepared to help his kind with things that required hands and fingers. Funny how he could be reminded of home in a place that was so far from it.

Once the table was set, the pair sat down on either side of him. Reno held up their plates one at a time while Tess dished up meatloaf for all of them. He refused to withdraw his own plate until his portion was nearly equal to Nanaki's.

"So," Tess said once she had moved on to spooning mashed potatoes onto her plate. "How much can you tell me about the case you're working on?"

"Well… We got one bit of news that might interest ya." Reno slid the salad bowl across the table to her. "Remember that 'miracle Stigma cure' I told you about? Glimmer?"

She nodded.

"Figured out what it is. Well, the glimmery part of it anyway." He paused and gave her a thoughtful look. "Y'know, there's something you could do for me, actually."

Reno got up and walked over to the coats that hung by the front door. From an inside pocket of his Turk jacket, he fished out the small, translucent bag of Glimmer they had recovered and dropped it into Tess's hand on the way back to his seat.

"Whoa," she said, holding it up under the ceiling lamp. "This is Glimmer? It looks like diamond dust."

"Not quite, babe. I'm guessing it's materia dust."

"Really?" She leaned in for a closer look. "You can do that with materia?"

"That's what I'm hoping you can tell us. Check it out in the lab, yeah? See if I'm right about this, and try to figure out what else they've put into it."

"I'd be happy to help out," she mumbled, angling the bag under the light, "but our biology lab isn't exactly ideal for this kind of chemical analysis. Don't you Turks have specialists for this sort of thing?"

"Not since HQ blew up," he sighed. "Now we're asking favors wherever we can get 'em."

"What about the 'RO? Their science department isn't what it used to be, but they might be able to help out."

"Good idea, babe. Could you drop by tomorrow?"

Tess finally tore her attention off the bag and looked at Reno instead.

"Me?" she asked, somewhat wide-eyed.

"Pretty please?" he cooed, grinning. "A day in Edge might be fun for a change. I bet that Costan kid would love to see ya."

"Jon?" She laughed, but it rang false and her gaze fell to the table. "I... can't really leave my lab here. We have our hands full."

"C'mon, the others can hold down the fort for one day. I'll give you a ride into town in the morning. Better yet, _you_ drive so I can take a nap in the car."

Tess stared at the baggie of Glimmer in her hand, gnawing gently on her bottom lip.

"Sorry. Right now I just… can't."

She tried to give the bag back, but Reno shook his head.

"Keep it. Just... see what you can do, all right?"

His smile seemed off, somehow. She kept her eyes downcast. Nanaki shifted in his seat, unsure of where he was supposed to look. Discreetly, he drew a breath. The hint of fear in the air only confused him more.

"It looks so... pretty," she murmured, studying the bag. "You said you know what the glittery part is?"

"Yeah. These scumbags are grinding up materia for people to snort." Reno scoffed and shook his head. "Waste of whatever they got left of their lives. Waste of materia, too."

"I guess it doesn't work, huh?"

"Far as I know, it gives you a nosebleed and slowly makes your face melt off. The best you can hope for is a bit of a buzz, but if that's what you're looking for, there's half a dozen things you could be snorting instead that do a better job of it."

She shuddered. "Well, whatever it is, I don't want it on our dinner table." She twisted around in her seat and set it down on a chest of drawers behind her. "Now, tell me," she said once she had turned back to them. "How in the world did the two of you end up working together on this?"

A grin returned to Reno's face.

"Heh, we almost didn't. This guy," he nodded at Nanaki, "can be hella stubborn, yo."

He regaled her with a tale of their prickly first encounters, embellishing in some places and redacting in others, teasing Nanaki at every turn. It was amicable, though, intended to draw out Nanaki's version of events. The last remnants of that strange tension had soon vanished, and time passed quickly as they recounted their adventures and exchanged playful barbs. Before Nanaki knew it, their plates were empty – even Reno's, he noted with grudging respect.

Nanaki sat and waited as the couple cleared the table. There was little he could do with paws, and the two of them seemed to manage just fine without him – until he heard a dull thud and a curse.

"Reno," Tess snapped, rubbing her temple. "Close the cupboard doors when you're done, will you?"

"Huh? What's the big deal? They're just gonna get opened again, anyway."

"The big deal is that I don't want to bang my head every time I take a step sideways. So please, close the damn doors!"

"Oh. Whoops."

Nanaki ears fell forward as he watched the man make a tour of the kitchen, meekly following her orders. Tess glanced his way and raised an eyebrow.

"And what do _you_ find so funny, mister guardian?"

"If you must know," he replied, "you two remind me of my parents."

"Oh shut up, Furball," the Turk grumbled.

"It is true. You have her fiery temperament," he told Tess, then turned to Reno, his ears flicking forward again, "and you... have his mane."

Reno tilted his head, squinting at Nanaki's own mane.

"Y'know, I can't tell if that's meant to be a compliment or just one of your sneaky burns."

"Sneaky? Perhaps I will take _that_ as a compliment myself."

"If it's a burn, you should pay him back in kind," Tess goaded Reno with a grin. "I want to see where this goes."

She folded her arms over her chest, waiting. Reno looked at her, then at Nanaki.

"Oh, c'mon, guys. I can't do it while you're all watching!"

"Aw, it's okay, honey nuts." She leaned in to kiss his cheek. "I hear it happens to every guy at some time or another."

He gave her a sore look. "Goddammit, I should've known you two would gang up on me."

"You're a big bad Turk, you can take it," she teased. "Now if you boys can behave a minute, I'll get us some dessert."

Nanaki's ears perked up as she fetched a round tub from the freezer. Ice cream was a bowl of milk in another form – a very welcome one in the Canyon's sweltering heat. His mouth watered as he watched Tess carve several scoopfuls from the tub and divide them evenly into three bowls.

"Here you go," she said, setting a bowl down in front of Nanaki. "I hope vanilla's still your favorite."

"It is. Thank you."

"Heh, should've guessed you're a vanilla guy." Reno snickered to himself as he dropped back down in his chair, clutching a jam jar and a tube of chocolate sauce.

"Excuse me?"

"Ignore him," Tess groaned. "Reno is still trying to figure out _appropriate_ small talk." She placed his bowl in front of him with a pointed look.

"Shit, that's right. Teen in the house." He grinned at Nanaki as he squeezed chocolate sauce into his bowl. "Never mind, kid. I'll explain when you're older."

" _Please don't._ "

Nanaki and Tess looked at each other in surprise, both having uttered it at the same time. He flashed her his toothy smile. She burst into giggles, while a bemused Reno just stared at them, tube in hand.

Their dessert did not survive long. Tess gathered up their bowls and carried them to the kitchen; on her way back she paused by the chest of drawers. The small baggie still glimmered on top of it.

"People actually destroy materia to make this?" she asked thoughtfully, picking it up for another look. "I thought they were valuable, especially now that Shinra isn't making any new ones."

"Sure, but that don't always mean much around here," Reno said, folding an arm over the back of his chair. "Ain't many millionaires in Edge, y'know. Most of 'em have other priorities anyhow, what with all the rebuilding and all. Easier to find buyers who can scrounge up a few hundred gil a pop for this stuff, than someone who'll pay in the tens of thousands."

"Easier to scam people, you mean," she scoffed, dropping the bag back down. "This whole thing is vile."

"That's why we're trying to stop 'em, babe."

A frown slowly formed on her face as she studied the shimmering bag, until she sighed and picked it up again.

"Look, I'll take this to my lab tomorrow. Maybe we can figure out what this is here at the Cliff after all."

She carried it over to the front door and slipped it into a purse that hung from the coat rack, which was why she didn't see the shadow that passed over Reno's face. As soon as it had arrived, it was gone again.

"Appreciate it, babe." He got up and met her halfway to the door, where he leaned down and pressed his lips to her forehead. "I gotta go pick up a spare phone from the office. Might head over to Rude's for a bit, too. You kids behave, now."

"I'd say you and Rude are the kids in need of behaving."

"Ehh, maybe."

The pair exchanged a private smile before Reno traipsed to the front door, throwing Nanaki a grin on the way. Nanaki tilted his head and stared at the man, befuddled by the last few minutes of conversation. The Turk's words had spoken differently than his body, and his body had spoken differently than his face.

"So," Tess said once the bewildering man had left, "how about we sit outside on the deck? The night sky is incredible out here."

Nanaki's ears perked up. "Just like old times?"

"Yeah." She smiled. "Just like old times."

She brought him to the wall of glass that separated the living room from the garden, and slid one of the panels aside. A chorus of invisible insects greeted them as they stepped onto the wooden deck; not like the deafening crickets of Costa del Sol, but a susurration of gentler voices. Above them, Nanaki could already make out the faint twinkling of stars.

"We'll see more in a few minutes," Tess said, taking a seat in one of the two chairs on the deck. On the round table between them stood a familiar plant in a hand-painted pot: the silver-leafed shrub she had taken with her from Cosmo Canyon. If it still followed the seasons of its native soil, it would soon sprout a cluster of frail flower buds.

Beyond the deck, parts of her garden were already in bloom; Nanaki could just make out spots of contrasting color in the dwindling light, scattered among the bushes and flower beds that girdled a central patch of mown grass. A huddle of white and yellow star-shaped flowers, small enough that Nanaki could have covered it all with his body, grew just outside the edge of the deck. Their fragrance hung in the air like the vibrant gossamer of a dragonfly's wings; it reminded Nanaki of the Midgar flower girl he once knew. He sat down next to them.

"So. You and Reno, working together." Tess laughed softly. "Who would have guessed, huh?"

"Not I, that much is certain."

"He and I had a rocky start, too, but…" She smiled. "He grows on you, doesn't he?"

"Like mold on cheese."

This time, her laughter was more like a giggle. "Now, now, he isn't _that_ bad."

"He is not that good, either." He shifted his weight from one side to the other. "But… he does have redeeming qualities."

"Oh my. Was that a compliment I just heard?"

The crinkle of cellophane drew his eye back to her. She was opening the box of chocolates Reno had brought her.

"I am merely acknowledging that he is not all I thought him to be," Nanaki said, raising his tail to give her more light, "and that in some ways, he is more. I did not expect a Turk to ever fight at my side. I did not expect him to know my name, and I certainly did not expect him to love you."

Her fingers went still.

"...What?"

When he glanced up, she was staring at him with wide eyes.

"Did I say something wrong?" he asking, tilting his head in sudden concern. "My apologies. I speak of your pair bond."

"No, hang on a bit. He _said_ that?"

"Not in words, no. He does not need to."

With a small huff, she sank back in her chair. "I guess you're right about that."

Nanaki studied her hunched shoulders and the crease between her eyebrows, trying to gauge the shift in her mood.

"Did I use the wrong word?"

"No, don't worry," she said quickly, and offered a faint smile. "It's just that if he starts using that one around others before he ever says it to _me_ , I'm going to have choice words of my own to yell at him."

"You are... waiting for confirmation?"

"No, not like that." She gazed down at the heart-shaped box in her hands, absently stroking a thumb along the edge of it. "I mean, it would be nice to hear it, even once, but it's not like it would come as a surprise."

"Why not tell him this?"

"I can't _tell_ him to say it! Christ, the levels of awkward would be astronomical."

Nanaki gave it some thought. His grandfather had been fond of that word, in the context of unfathomable time and distance. It was unlikely that this was what she had in mind, though. Instead he searched his memory for what he had witnessed of human relationships back in the Canyon.

"Why do _you_ not say it first?" he suggested. "Is it not customary to respond in kind?"

Tess stared at him. Then she chuckled, shaking her head.

"You know, Nanaki, you have a knack for finding the right questions."

"If one wishes to learn, one must begin with a question."

"That sounds like one of your grandfather's sayings."

"It is. He much enjoyed questions, especially when one gave rise to many others."

"Blessed with the mind of a scientist." She snorted. "Or cursed. Take your pick."

"I choose the former." Nanaki looked up at the stars. "So would he."

They sat in silence a while, each reflecting upon their own thoughts. The darkness had deepened, yet at the same time, the pinpricks above had multiplied into a mosaic of light. A curious contradiction, Nanaki mused as he gazed upon them.

"How does the sky look to you here?" Tess eventually asked.

"It is different. Some constellations are missing, others have shifted to new positions."

"It looks different to me, too… But it always looks different to me, no matter where I go." She sighed. "I wonder if I'll ever get used to it."

"Grandfather showed me charts of constellations we could not see from the Canyon. I wonder if we are far enough north to see them now."

"Do you remember them?"

"I can try." He tucked his tail in under his body and peered at the sky, searching for any patterns he knew from Cosmo Canyon. "Observe," he said, raising his paw to point at a trio of stars near the horizon, much brighter than their neighbors. "I believe that is the tail of the Leviathan. The rest of it must be hidden from our view."

"Oh, you might be right. Then those four to the left, they could be Ifrit's body."

"Indeed, and the two above them are his feet."

It was a comforting routine they slipped into, as they pointed out the brightest stars to each other and guessed at their invisible connections. Tess had once told him that she had traveled so far from her original home that none of the stars were familiar to her, which was why she was so curious about these ones. Nanaki could not imagine it. Wherever he had wandered – and he had wandered far, indeed – he had always been able to find some familiar corner of the sky to guide him.

His grandfather had told him that every star was distant sun, each with its own loyal pack of planets. At first it had made Nanaki feel incredibly small – and, at times, incredibly lonely. As he grew older, though, it had begun to fill him with a fierce pride. Out of all the planets of the cosmos, this one alone was his to protect and cherish. This was _the_ Planet; literally one in a million. A million millions.

As Nanaki sat beside Tess and gazed up at all those unseen worlds orbiting the stars above, he recovered a sense of that pride and purpose. His guardianship should not be confined to his village, or to his friends; his duty was to the Planet itself, and to the life that had sprung from its Lifestream. That included the people of Edge.

He would bring this Glimmer business to an end. It was not just a matter of granting the favor that Reno had asked of him. It was his duty.

* * *

It was almost midnight when Nanaki heard the quiet scrape of a key in the front door. He caught a ripe gust of alcohol as soon as Reno came inside, but the man closed the door without a sound and his steps were sure and silent.

"Hey there, Furball," he whispered. "Fitz still awake?"

"I believe so."

With a smile and nod, Reno slunk into the bedroom. Moments later, Nanaki picked up the murmurs of hushed conversation, but angled his ears away before he made out any words. He returned his attention to the yard on the other side of the glass door before him, staring into the trees beyond the fence. The outdoors had been calling to him ever since Tess had excused herself and headed to bed, but his guardian instincts had kept him at his self-assigned post, waiting for Reno's return.

His last visit months ago had been brief, but from what he could remember of it, human abodes were few and far between in these cliffs. He trawled his memory for the buildings he had seen, trying to place them in relation to Tess and Reno's lodge. With a bit of caution, he should be able to wander all night without coming across a single one of them.

Surprised to hear the bedroom door open again, Nanaki looked over his shoulder. Reno had returned in nothing but underwear, with a pillow under one arm and what appeared to be a blanket bundled up in the other. He raised a finger to his lips and closed the door with care, then tiptoed to the couch.

"Do you not sleep with her?" Nanaki wondered, keeping his voice low.

Reno snickered as he spread the blanket with a flick of his wrists.

"Oh, I sleep with her plenty. When I've had a few drinks, though, I sleep it off on the couch."

Nanaki tilted his head, trying to puzzle out what was meant by the words. The humans on this continent assigned far too many meanings to the word "sleep".

Reno glanced his way and caught him staring. He sighed.

"Sometimes booze messes with my sleep. I might wake up yelling or something, and I don't wanna freak her out in the middle of the night. Simple as that."

Nanaki considered this as Reno plumped up his pillow and set it down at one end of the couch.

"Why do you drink it, then?"

A crooked smile appeared on the man's face.

"Y'know what? Sometimes you think too much, kitty cat."

"I suspect you think too little."

With a chuckle, Reno flopped down on the couch and let his head sink into the pillow.

"Can't argue with that, yo."

His eyes were cracked open just enough for Nanaki to see that he had looked away, and the smile on his face didn't quite reach them. Why did the man always have to say so many different things at once?

"Hey, uh... Thanks for coming over. I haven't seen her smile like that for weeks."

Nanaki looked around the room, hoping it might offer more clues than this puzzle of a man. Their home seemed just as inviting by the golden light of his tail, and Tess had had plenty of smiles for both him and Reno.

Shinra, he concluded with a twitch of unease. They were, after all, deep in Shinra territory.

"If this place does not make her smile, then perhaps she should be elsewhere."

Reno stared up at the ceiling as he tucked one arm under his head.

"Yeah. Maybe she should." He sighed, then turned to Nanaki with half a smile. "Well, I'm all set here. How about you, where do you wanna spend the night? Inside, outside...?"

Nanaki pricked his senses, but gleaned nothing that might clue him in to Reno's state of mind. Perhaps it was owing to the beer he could smell on the man's breath. Alcohol made some humans moody, after all.

No matter. Whatever thoughts Reno wallowed in, they were not for Nanaki.

"I will spend this one outside. I wish to explore."

The man nodded, yawning.

"Cool," he mumbled, pulling the blanket over himself. "Just knock if you change your mind. I'm a pretty light sleeper."

Nanaki let himself out and let the door fall shut behind him. In the pale shimmer of a concave moon, he could trace the outlines of knotty pines, growing along the slopes among man-sized boulders. Somewhere beyond them, streams murmured softly as they wound their way down the cliffs. After days trapped in a teeming human city, Nanaki welcomed the hush of Healen's night. He filled his lungs with crisp mountain air, then loped off into the dark.


	12. Shadow Business

**12\. Shadow Business**

* * *

The rising sun glittered on dew-damp leaves. Nanaki trotted down a gravelly mountain road, returning to Tess and Reno's home with a spring in his step and a warm, sated glow in his belly. Hunting at night always brought him a giddy sense of satisfaction. His tail had mattered little in his home village, where his kind had hunted by day; what was one little flame against the blinding blaze of Cosmo Canyon's sun? At night, though, he had to use every shred of stealth and cunning he could muster, which made the taste of a successful strike all the juicier.

The house was quiet, the windows dark. _Knock on the door_ , Reno had told him, but it seemed pointless to disturb the man's sleep now that the sun was already on the rise. The backyard was fenced in and the gate locked, but Nanaki didn't need a Turk with lockpicks to get past those. Climbing was not his strongest suit, but with the aid of claws and a bit of persistence, he managed to get high enough in a nearby tree to leap across the fence. As he landed on the grass a billow of flowery scents engulfed him, as if he had dived into a rainbow. He found them cloying and insistent, hardly as interesting as the smells he had found outside the fence; human noses seemed to value this kind of cultivated triteness over nuance.

Nanaki curled up on the deck, content to wait until his hosts woke up. The early summer mornings in the mountains were nippy, especially when the sun's rays had not yet penetrated the shade of Tess's garden, but his fur had kept him warm through the dead of night in Cosmo Canyon, which had a chill that lent truth to the saying. He laid his head upon his paws, tucked his tail around him and closed his eye.

He must have dozed off at some point, but the light footsteps woke him up a moment before the door slid open behind him.

"Mornin', Furball."

How strange to see Reno free of excess fabric. His t-shirt was still white, but the hoodie he wore over it was turquoise and the shorts were as red as his hair. His shoes were even bolder – the lurid combination of mako green and yellow made Nanaki's eye swim.

"I'm gonna go for a run," he announced, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "If Fitz wakes up, tell her to wait for me 'til I come back, yeah?"

"As you wish."

"Cool."

With a grin, Reno took off down the road in a garish blur.

He had left a gap the glass door, just wide enough for Nanaki to stick in a paw sideways. He did his best to nudge the door closed once he had snuck in, and settled down on the fluffy rug between the couch and the TV. His kind may have embraced the rugged outdoors, but that didn't mean he was immune to the finer of life's comforts.

The air was still rife with memories of their dinner. Pleasant memories, despite Nanaki's initial reservations. Relaxing memories. Together with the rug and the warmth of the indoors, they soon got the better of him and he drifted back to sleep.

He woke up again when the bedroom door opened. Tess shuffled through, yawning and bleary-eyed, fumbling the belt of her soft-looking robe into a knot.

"Good morning," Nanaki said.

"Morning." She smiled, though her brow wrinkled as she looked over at the pillow and blanket on the couch. "I seem to be missing a Turk."

"He went out for a run, but he wishes to see you when he returns."

"Always with the running. Four times a week, can you believe it?" She yawned and ran her fingers through her mane. It bounced back over her forehead in loose, soft curls as soon as she let her hand fall. "I don't know how he does it. I can barely make it to the coffee machine before eight in the morning. Speaking of…"

Nanaki followed her into the bright golden light of the morning sun, admitted by the strip of windows that spanned almost the entire curve of the kitchen wall.

"Can I get you anything?" she asked as she opened a cupboard, wafting the warm bitterness of ground coffee into the air.

"Water, please."

Tess asked a few questions about his nightly excursion while the coffee machine sputtered, only to yawn throughout his answers, apologizing each time. He didn't mind; if anything, it brought a welcome touch of nostalgia. He had become well acquainted with her pre-coffee state back in her Cosmo Canyon days. It had been something of a habit back then, the two of them sharing a few quiet words in the morning sun over her first coffee of the day.

"Come on, let's go outside," she said once she finally had a steaming mug in her hand. "I want to see how the tulips are doing today."

She led them through the front door. They had just reached the plot she had been weeding the day before, when Nanaki heard the drumming of familiar footfalls. Reno was racing up the path, his hoodie tied around his waist and his t-shirt stuck to his body like a second skin.

"Morning, beautiful!"

He scooped her up in his arms and leaned in for that greeting ritual with the lips. She squealed and pushed him away, laughing.

"God, you're soaked through! Shower first, then kisses!"

"Aww," he whined, but released her and bounded into the house.

Nanaki breathed in and wrinkled his nose. A scent lingered in Reno's wake, faint but acrid under the sweat, that called up memories of needles and white coats. With a quick shudder, he pushed them away.

Tess watched Reno go, still chuckling. "Guess someone got up on the right side of the couch this morning."

Nanaki tilted his head to the side.

"Is that surprising? A couch only has one side that one can get up from."

"Figure of speech, Nanaki. Well, the saying is actually 'to wake up on the wrong side of the bed', when you want to say someone is grumpy."

He wasted a few moments thinking it over, then flicked his tail.

"Humans have made an art of turning communication into confusion."

She laughed. "Well, what can I say? We're easily amused."

The front door burst open and out came Reno, wearing a Turk suit that looked liked he had quite literally thrown it on. His hair had been a bit sticky around the temples when he went in, but now it was plastered against his head. He took Tess's hand and twirled her around, then pulled her into his arms.

"Hey," she giggled, "you're still dripping on–"'

She got no further, for Reno pressed his lips to hers, tilting her backwards from the waist.

"Had a shower," he murmured, barely releasing her lips, then kissed her again. "Counts."

He finally let her go and gave her a grin. Tess stood there, her eyes a little glazed over, and didn't even seem to notice that he had grabbed her coffee cup and gulped down several mouthfuls.

"Whoa." She blinked away her daze. "What's gotten into you?"

"Sorry, babe, no time for chitchat," he said, placing the cup back in her hand. "Duty calls. C'mon, Furball!"

He strutted off down the path. Nanaki uttered a quick goodbye, which Tess barely registered, and loped after him.

* * *

Nanaki spent most of the ride into town with his head stuck out the car window. After the previous day's dose of sewage, the car smelled like a "Zolom's damp ass", as Reno had put it. The rushing wind was also refuge for his ears; the man had turned on the radio and was eagerly belting out the lyrics of every chorus.

Edge was well within their sight when Reno called him back inside. The Turk had rolled the driver window down all the way and let one elbow hang out. The wind kept tousling his hair, but he did not seem to mind. Perhaps it was his method of drying it.

"Had a chat with Laney this morning."

Nanaki's ears perked up. "Your PHS works?"

"Nah, my old one's a brick. Picked up a backup at Healen last night."

"Oh." That likely meant Nanaki's phone was beyond saving, too. He would have to speak to Reeve.

"Anyway," Reno said, "Laney. She and Tseng hit that Glimmer lab last night. Just as I figured, they found a whole lot of nothing."

"No tracks at all?"

"Not a damn thing. 'Til Fitz figures out what the product is, we're a lil' short on leads to follow."

"Damnation," Nanaki growled.

Reno's face split into a huge grin.

"Really? That's how you swear, Furball?"

"I do not–" Nanaki stopped as he realized the obvious contradiction in what he had intended to say. His kind had no use for uttered curses; it was a habit he had picked up from his grandfather. A thoroughly _human_ habit. His ears drooped in surprised dismay as Reno's laughter rang in them.

"I like it, kitty cat. Makes you a lil' more human, yo."

Nanaki thumped his tail into the back of the driver's seat.

"Easy back there," Reno said, still chuckling, "I mean that in the good kinda way. Makes you more... _relatable_ , y'know?"

Nanaki's tail twitched again.

"Perhaps you should focus on our lack of a trail, rather than my manner of speech."

"Heh. Sure. Well, on that note, I think it's time I had another chat with Ollie Wester."

It took Nanaki a few beats to connect the name to the blond man he had chased to Edge.

"The materia thief?"

"Thief, dealer, possible murderer, who knows what else. Maybe he'll be more interested in talking to us once he hears his brother got fried by their so-called buddies."

"He has remained silent?"

"More or less. I get the feeling this guy ain't used to thinking for himself, 'cause he ain't listening to reason. Makes me think he doesn't know what to do with it, y'know? Probably left the thinking to his brother and just did what he was told."

"And now he has no brother to tell him what to do," Nanaki mused.

Reno's grin was the toothy smile of a predator closing in on its prey.

"Exactly. Let's find out how he deals with that, yo."

* * *

Half an hour later, Nanaki and Reno stood side by side in a darkened room. Their only source of light was a large window, which opened onto a second room. In the middle of that other room sat Ollie Wester, his hands cuffed to the metal table in front of him. The bright light made him look sickly – or perhaps it was the fading bruise across his cheekbone.

The door to the backroom opened. The man who had delivered the prisoner into the interrogation room stepped inside and nodded to Reno. He didn't wear a Turk suit nor any logos or insignia of any kind, and Reno had been evasive about the nature of this facility. Whatever this place was, Nanaki suspected a strong connection to Shinra. The guard had recognized the Turk on sight.

"Right, showtime." Reno had barely said it, before a loud series of beeps trilled inside his jacket. He pulled out his PHS and checked the screen. With the press of a button, it went silent.

"You'd best stay here, Furball," he said, sliding his phone back into his pocket unanswered. "Don't want this guy screaming his head off about demon dogs again."

Nanaki retorted with an annoyed swish of his swaddled tail, and the Turk grinned as he sauntered out of the room.

The man chained to the table flinched when the door opened, and glowered at Reno as he strolled in and took a seat. Nanaki wished he could have gotten a whiff of him, but at least watching and listening was better than, say, navigating a phone call through sound alone.

"Hey there, Ollie boy." Reno smiled, and Nanaki was struck by how different it was from the one he had shown just a minute ago. "How's the head?"

"Fine," the man muttered, picking at the chain that tethered him to the table. It looked thin and flimsy in his stubby fingers.

"Seems you've been keeping secrets from me, buddy." Reno didn't seem worried about the chain's strength, if his casual slouch was anything to go by. "We found your brother. Or… what's left of him, in any case."

Ollie's fingers stilled.

"What do you mean?"

"Julius Wester is toast." The Turk's cold smile grew wider. "Literally."

"He's… dead?"

"Fried by a mastered thunderball, far as we can tell. That ring any bells?"

The man dropped his gaze and stared down at his hands, blinking rapidly.

"Wanna know what I think?" Reno asked after a moment of silence. "I think you and your brother messed up. Maybe you weren't supposed to kill that woman. Maybe you weren't supposed to draw so much _stupid_ attention by frying her after. I'm guessing that's why your brother got fried, too. And that makes me think you've got a big problem now, Ollie boy, because whoever killed your brother is gonna want _you_ dead, too. Because they know you can lead us to 'em."

Ollie kept staring at his hands. They were shaking now.

"You got no one left." Reno smiled. "No one but us, yo."

"You?" The man scoffed, though it was a halfhearted attempt at best. "You suits ain't on my side."

"That's where you're wrong. See, if you lead us to 'em, we take 'em down. And if we take 'em down, won't be no one left to take your sorry ass out. So, this is your chance to do yourself a huge favor. Tell us how to find 'em, and we'll make your lil' problem go away."

The man's gaze darted this way and that. He appeared to lock eyes with Nanaki once, but that couldn't be. According to Reno, the other side of the window was a mirror.

"I told you," Ollie finally muttered. "I don't know how."

"Then let's see if we can work it out together." Reno placed a hand on his thigh and leaned forward. "The collector, Maudie Dedrick. Why her?"

"I don't know any whys. We were sent to her place to grab her materia, that's all I know."

"Grab the materia? That's all?"

Ollie nodded.

"So, you're telling me killing her wasn't part of the plan," Reno concluded. "Which one of you did it?"

The man's lip began to quiver, but he said nothing.

"C'mon, Ollie boy, quit stalling. We already found the gun. Won't be long 'til we get the prints off it. Do yourself a favor and talk to me while it's still worth my time. You don't wanna end up like your brother, do ya?"

It was a lie, Nanaki realized; he and Reno would not be here if Inspector Thorne had condescended to share the results of her investigation. The lie had an effect, though; he could clearly hear the thin, metallic clinking of the chain that fettered the man's hands to the table. Ollie was twisting it between his fingers, faster and faster.

Reno waited silently, pinning the man with an unblinking stare. On the other side of the window, Nanaki's tail flicked back and forth. He hadn't been a fan of Reno's chatter, but he hadn't realized how much worse the Turk's silence could be.

Ollie finally shook his head. His shoulders sagged until it seemed he had physically shrunk in his chair, like a balloon leaking air.

"It was me," he whispered. "I… shot her."

"Why?"

"It was an accident." He hung his head, hiding his face. "It was, I swear it! I was just supposed to point the gun at her, make sure she kept still, but I-I was nervous. I'd never pointed a gun at someone before." He looked up, his eyes red and watery. "I don't to that, okay? I don't do that to people!"

Reno's face remained blank. "You did this time."

"Yeah. I did. But I was nervous, like I said, and then J.B. got the safe open, and it slammed into the wall, and… and I jumped, and… Oh, sweet Shiva!" Ollie dropped his head in his hands.

"So, your brother J.B. was with you after all," Reno said thoughtfully. "And when he slammed the safe door, the gun went off, is that what you're saying? You pulled the trigger?"

"Yes," the man moaned. "I didn't mean to, I swear!"

"So you shot the woman. Then what?"

"Well, we… Shit, I don't know! It's gone all blurry."

"The thunderball. I'm guessing it was hers? Why'd you use it on her?"

"That was J.B. He found it in the safe and thought it might help."

Reno raised his eyebrows. " _Help_?"

"Yeah, you know, make it harder to figure out she'd been shot. But… her clothes caught fire, and then her chair… So we had to put it out. We had to get the materia we came for, or they'd–" Ollie cut himself off and swallowed hard, several times. "J.B. is really dead, huh?"

"Afraid so." Reno paused. "I'm guessing he told you to do what he said, or 'they' would kill you both, didn't he?"

The man replied with a pathetic nod.

"Who? Who'd kill ya?"

In the pause that followed, the cuff chain began clinking again.

"The others," Ollie muttered.

"We're gonna need names, pal."

"I don't know any, I swear!" he yelled, his face red and twisted up with fear and grief. "J.B. did the talking, not me. He thought it'd be best if I didn't know too much!"

"You ever see any of 'em?"

"No!"

Reno leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head, and just stared. Little by little, Ollie's sniveling turned into ragged breaths, then quiet sniffling. As the silence deepened, he kept sending timid glances at the Turk; with each one the cuff chain rattled more.

"I gotta be honest with you, Ollie boy," Reno finally said. "I ain't all that impressed with what you got to say."

"But I've told you everything I know." Ollie's voice was still thick, his down-cast eyes hollow with defeat.

"Then all you know is jack shit, and I'm just wasting my time talking to ya. I might as well let you go."

The man blinked a few times, then frowned. When he looked up, the confusion was plain on his face.

"Really?"

"Sure. Your buddies are gonna come looking for ya, though." Reno smirked. "And judging from the mess they made of your brother, they ain't gonna be all that happy to see ya."

Ollie went white.

"W-wait," he blurted, swallowing thickly. "Listen. There's this place we went to a couple of times. I never went inside, but I know it's where J.B. met up with them. A warehouse, right outside Midgar's old Sector 4."

"A warehouse?" Reno snorted and shook his head. "You're gonna have to do better than that, pal. Think we got the time to look through every fucking warehouse 'round Midgar?"

"S-so give me a map or something," Ollie pleaded. "I'll point it out for you!"

Reno glanced at the mirror and gave a small nod. The guard hurried out of the room; a few beats later he knocked on the door to the interrogation room, sidled in, and unfolded a sheet of paper on the table. Once he had left, Reno slid it closer to Ollie.

"Show me."

The man fumbled with the map, hindered by cuffed wrists and shaking fingers, but managed to maneuver it around.

"Here," he said, stabbing the map with his finger. "This is the place. It's all fenced in, looks all empty from the outside."

Reno craned his neck and took a good look, before folding up the map and sliding it inside his jacket. He pushed his chair back and got up, then slid his hands into his pockets and stared. The other man didn't look up to meet his eyes; it wasn't long before his fingers were twirling the cuff chain again.

"Y'know, you could've saved me a lot of time if you'd told me 'bout your brother right away." Reno smiled, though to Nanaki it looked more like baring his teeth. "Gotta admit I'm still a lil' pissed 'bout that."

The man said nothing, just bowed his head and sniffled.

"So," the Turk continued. "I sure hope you've been honest with me this time, buddy. If I gotta come back here for another chat, after wasting my time running after a whole bunch of nothing, it ain't gonna be this friendly. You don't want that, do ya?"

Ollie grew very still, then replied with a quick shake of his head.

"That's what I thought. With that in mind, here's your last chance to tell me something I don't know. Just in case you… _forgot_ to tell me anything before. No hard feelings, buddy, so long as you fix it right now."

After a few shallow breaths of silence, the man shook his head again.

Reno walked out. Nanaki followed his footsteps with his ears until the Turk strolled into the darkened backroom.

"I'm done here," he told the guard. "Lock him up."

As the guard left, Reno came up beside Nanaki by the window.

"You heard all that, right?" he asked once the door had closed again.

"Yes."

He scoffed and shook his head. "What a bunch of brainless losers. No wonder their pals decided to take 'em out."

"Do you think this one is telling the truth this time?"

Reno's eyes narrowed as he observed the other man through the glass. "What do you think?"

Nanaki paused, caught off guard by such a question. The chained man's words had matched his body language, most of the time… but without a sense of his scent and pulse, it was nigh impossible for Nanaki to suss out the motive behind them.

"I… cannot say."

"That so?" Reno gave him a once-over from the corner of his eye. "Can't smell anything from in here, huh?"

"Something like that." Nanaki watched as the guard released Ollie from the table and escorted him out of the room. "All I can tell is that he is nervous."

"Well, I did just tell the guy his former cronies killed his brother and probably wanna kill him, too. That's bound to make a man a lil' jumpy." Reno removed his hands from his pockets and rolled his shoulders. "But, I know one way to find out if he's lying or not."

"Oh?"

"Detective work. Good old-fashioned detective work." With a grin, he whirled around and pushed the door open in one elaborate move. "C'mon, Furball. Let's go see if there's anything interesting in this warehouse."


	13. Lightning Strikes Twice

**13\. Lightning Strikes Twice**

* * *

Nanaki stood on a pock-marked street on the outskirts of Edge, deep within the long shadow of Midgar. The building in front of them was easily the size of one of Cid Highwind's beloved airships, and surrounded by a chainlink fence several feet taller than the Turk beside him. Its location suggested it was one of the earliest buildings erected after Midgar's fall, as did the battered corrugated steel it was built from. That would explain why it now stood empty, abandoned in favor of sturdier warehouses with better roads on the other side of the city – and fewer vermin, monstrous or otherwise, sneaking in from Midgar's ruins in search of an easy meal. None were close at this time, as far as Nanaki could tell, but their Mako-tainted odors lingered.

Reno checked the map in his hands, then glanced at their surroundings.

"Looks like this is the place, all right. You smell anyone nearby? Hear anything?"

Nanaki took a few deep breaths and pricked his ears. The shouts and the rumbling of vehicles were all too distant for human ears, he suspected.

"It seems we are alone, save for a few cats in the shed across the street."

Reno chuckled. "Pretty sure we don't need to worry about kitty cats. Well, assuming they ain't the size of you."

After one more look around, he walked over to a chained gate and brought out his lockpick case from his jacket. He selected a pair of thin tools and slid them into the padlock on the chain.

"Hey, Furball. Wanna bet there's another body in there?"

"Excuse me?"

"C'mon, just for the hell of it." The mechanism inside the lock clicked softly as Reno teased it with his lockpicks. "If we find another body, you… gotta buy me a milkshake. If there ain't, I'll buy you one."

Puzzled, Nanaki tilted his head.

"Why would I want shaken milk?"

"Oh man, you've never had a milkshake?" The lock in Reno's hands snapped open, and he pulled the chain free. "Screw the bet, then. Once this case is over and done with, we're gonna celebrate with a couple of genuine Edge milkshakes, yo."

"…If you insist."

"Hell, yeah." He grinned as he held the gate open. "You're gonna love 'em, Furball."

He shut the gate behind them and replaced the chain as they had found it. The padlock he left dangling from the chain, uselessly locked around a single loop and arranged to give the impression of an undisturbed entrance.

The first door they tried was unlocked, but it screeched like a Cosmo skeeskee as Reno shoved it open.

"Sheesh." He rubbed his ear. "Either this ain't one of the doors they've been using, or our pal Ollie is full of shit."

Nanaki had no desire to learn what that meant, so he kept silent. As soon as he stepped inside, though, something pricked at his nostrils: a crude, churlish smell that niggled at his senses like an unwelcome visitor.

"I smell… something."

"Like what?"

"I cannot say, but it is one that does not belong."

"That so? Lead the way, Furball."

Nanaki raised his head and sniffed the air. He followed the elusive trail down a corridor of sorts, wide enough for three or four chocobos side by side. The rolled-down doors on the left were almost twice as tall as a human; he suspected that the spaces on the other side were even taller, judging from the way sounds travelled through the building. As Nanaki picked his way across the refuse-littered concrete, he began to notice identifiable layers to the smell. The prickling of smoke; the sweetish tang of roasted meat; the fading stench of human fear. It was awfully familiar.

By a human-sized metal door he paused, breathing in the air that seeped through the narrow gap along its hinges.

"Beyond this door," he said, stepping back.

"Anyone inside?" Reno's voice was low, and although Nanaki shook his head, the man was impressively quiet as he unlatched the door and nudged it open.

"Woah, fuck." Reno pressed the back of his hand to his face. "I sure smell _that_."

The room they entered was an immense, echoing cavern. Only a few stacked crates remained of whatever cargo had travelled through this bay of the warehouse in times past, all of them spotty with mold and covered in a thin layer of badlands dust. The floor showed more recent signs of passage, though the prints were so numerous that it was difficult to identify them against the uneven concrete. They could have been left by shoes, paws, vehicles – perhaps a mix of all three.

Nanaki turned his head slowly, sampling the air in different directions.

"This way."

The trail, equal parts intriguing and foul, led them behind one of the stacks. As he rounded the corner of it, he stopped in his tracks and stared.

"Huh," Reno said, coming alongside him. "Well, this is different."

Nanaki examined the blackened pile before them. It looked much like the remains of an open fire that had long since burned out, but this heap was far larger than any campfire he had seen – and the smell was _nothing_ like scorched wood.

"Is that… a human?"

"Wouldn't surprise me if it is." Reno took a couple of steps sideways and squatted down, peering at the heap from another angle. "Guess I should've stuck to that bet, yo."

A third dead human. The first one had given Nanaki a simple trail to follow; the second had been much more complicated. Since the third had likewise died on Edge soil, it seemed probable that the consequences of this one would be complicated as well.

"Should we notify someone?"

"Like who?"

"The people you called in last time?" Nanaki struggled to remember what the local authorities were called in Edge. "The ones who enforce your laws?"

Reno glanced up at him, eyebrows raised.

"You already forget what happened last time, Furball?"

"Perhaps you could call another, then. Someone more amenable to our needs."

"Fat chance of that," he mumbled, studying the smeared floor around the piled-up pieces. "What passes for police here in Edge are all tied up with the 'RO these days. No way in hell are they gonna help a Shinra Turk."

"If the WRO is involved, can we not ask Reeve for help?"

"He can ask 'em to play nice, sure. Pretty sure they'll do it, too... while dragging their feet, forgetting to keep me in the loop, and generally not bothering to tell me anything I didn't specifically ask for. So, y'know, exactly what they've been doing so far." Reno looked up, smiling one of those crooked smiles that had nothing to do with amusement. "Dunno about you, kitty cat, but I'd rather find some answers _before_ the end of this century."

Nanaki's ears drooped as he examined the grisly heap before them. The body parts were so charred that his eyes and nose were of no use.

"What can we do with these remains, then?"

"We can have someone smarter than us two take a look at 'em, for a start."

Reno pulled out his PHS and thumbed a few buttons. The call connected as soon as he brought the phone to his ear, and the crisp female voice that came through the speaker was loud enough that Nanaki could make out every word.

" _Yes?_ "

"Heyyy, Linnie! You ain't busy, are ya? 'Cause we could sure use your help over here."

" _Is this a medical emergency?_ "

"Uh…" He glanced at the mess on the floor. "Sure."

" _What kind?_ "

"Looks like someone got hit by materia. The zappy kind again."

" _Are they breathing? Got a pulse?_ "

Reno closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Look, I ain't got the time to go over everything over the phone. Emergency and all, remember? It's Turk business, too, so gonna need you to be all hush-hush about it."

" _Figured as much,_ " she sighed. " _Fine. Give me the address._ "

* * *

Reno slowly circled the macabre pile on the floor, lighting it up with bright flashes from his PHS. Once he had completed his circuit, he peered at the phone's screen while mashing a button in a steady rhythm. He muttered a curse.

"Is there a problem?" Nanaki wondered.

"Ehh, the camera in this thing ain't that great. Lighting sucks, too."

"I shall take your word for it."

The man looked up, an eyebrow cocked.

"You, taking _my_ word for something?"

Nanaki angled his ears forward, just a little. "Well… It is an irrelevant matter."

Reno chuckled as he looked back at the device in his hand. "And here I thought we were making progress, Furball."

A door opened and closed some distance away, followed by footsteps.

"Someone is coming," Nanaki warned.

Reno's phone was gone in an instant. He was halfway to the door when a woman's voice called out, muffled but loud enough to be heard by the both of them.

"Hello? Is anyone here?"

Reno relaxed and pulled the door open, poking his head through the gap.

"In here, Linnie."

Dr. Uzuki showed up in the doorway a few breaths later. No hospital scrubs this time; just the regular kind of shirt and pants Nanaki would expect to see in any city on this continent, and a fat leather bag in her hand.

"I didn't come alone, just so you know. Tseng will be here any minute." She frowned and waved a hand in front of her face. "Whew, what's that smell?"

Reno had given a start at the name. "Tseng's here?"

"He showed up just as I was leaving, looking for you. When I told him you had a medical emergency, he gave me a lift. He's parking the car right now."

He peeked over her shoulder into the corridor behind her, muttering something under his breath.

"Problem?" she queried, giving him a look.

"Nah, it's just… It's nothing." He waved her in. "C'mon, it's right through here."

The doctor squinted at her surroundings as she strode in, likely still adjusting to the dim light of the warehouse. As soon as she passed the crates, she too stopped in her tracks. Her mouth fell open as she stared at the charred heap on the floor.

"You have got to be kidding me."

"Hey, it ain't like we had a barbecue just to fuck around with ya." Reno came up beside her, several paces from the pile. "It's important, all right? We need to know everything you can tell us about these."

"Is this a _crime scene_?"

"Well, yeah. Pretty sure this guy didn't chop up himself, yo."

This close to her, Nanaki could hear her heart beating like a drum.

"You are messing with a crime scene," she said incredulously, staring at Reno, "and now you expect _me_ to get my hands dirty too?"

"Your hands will be fine. You got gloves, don't you?"

She spat something in a language Nanaki didn't understand. "Are you trying to get me deported?"

"Aw, c'mon. You know we won't let anything happen to ya, honey. Anyone shows up to give you trouble, you just gimme a call and one of us will show up to wave a Turk ID in their face 'til they go away."

The doctor wrinkled her nose. "Ugh. Never call me honey again."

"C'mon, Linnie," he cajoled with a sugary smile. "Just take a look, will ya?"

Dr. Uzuki replied with a glare.

"Pretty please?" he cooed.

She narrowed her eyes, then sighed and looked over the remains on the floor.

"My educated guess is that these are parts of a human. A dead human, I would hope."

Reno groaned.

"Remember what I said earlier, Linnie? Y'know, about _details_?"

"If you want details, then why the hell are you asking me? I work with the living, not the dead."

"You know why," he said, his voice suddenly quiet.

Dr. Uzuki watched him a while. Her fingers twitched around the handle of her bag. Nanaki got the impression her toes were twitching too, ready to run.

"Oh, _fine_ ," she finally huffed, "but you owe me lunch."

"You got it."

"A _nice_ lunch. Not that grease pit you took me to last time."

"All right, all right." Reno rolled his eyes. "Just look at the damn stiff, will ya?"

"Fine." She snapped her bag open and yanked out a pair of latex gloves. "But I'm not touching anything I don't have to."

"Knew I could count on ya, Lin."

The approach of new footsteps drew Nanaki's eye to the door. They were quieter than the doctor's, but they fell at a decisive, implacable pace. He was not surprised when another Turk, stern-faced and long-maned, materialized in the doorway.

"Oh fuck," Reno muttered under his breath.

Nanaki had met this one before; the leader of the Turks, if memory served. When he laid eyes on the three of them, the man began to march grimly across the room. As he got closer, Nanaki noticed a whiff of something sickly and greasy – the Stigma, but it didn't come from within him. It clung to this Turk like Tess's scent clung to Reno. Nanaki had smelled it once before, when he and she had come face to face with Tseng and his President.

"Reno." Tseng opened his mouth again before his subordinate could respond, but a glance at the doctor – and the mess at her feet – put a stop to whatever he had intended to say. Only his sharp eyes moved as he examined the blackened ruin on the floor. "Report."

"Quick version? Had another chat with Wester, who sent us to this place." He nodded toward the charred remains. "This is what we found."

Tseng glanced at the doctor, who had crouched down to examine them. "And her presence?"

"The fucking CID, 'course." Reno scoffed. "Tried playing by their rules the first time, but Thorne ain't interested in returning the favor. Had to get creative."

The Turk leader drew in a measured breath.

"They won't like this."

"For the record," the doctor piped up as she carefully lifted one of the severed parts, "I don't like it either."

"Sorry, Linnie. I ain't too wild about it myself." Reno turned back to Tseng. "All I need is some goddamn breathing room. Just keep 'em off my back for a while, and I'll get to the bottom of this. You know I will."

Tseng surveyed the scene once more, then gave a sharp nod.

"We'll do this your way for now. Lin, do you have anything for us?"

She set down the part she had peeked under and leaned back a little, just enough to let her elbows rest on her thighs.

"Well, seems my educated guess was a bit off, for one. You've got parts of at least two people here."

"You sure about that?" Reno asked.

"Yes, unless your suspect had three hands."

He bent down, squinting at the part the doctor pointed at.

"That's a _hand_?"

She never got a chance to reply, for at that moment a cheery tune sounded from Reno's jacket. An odd look flitted across his face as he looked at the screen of his PHS, but he replaced it with a smile as he raised it to his ear.

"Hey, babe, whass–"

" _What the hell do you think you're doing?_ "

It was Tess, Nanaki recognized, yelling loudly enough that even Dr. Uzuki looked up with raised eyebrows. Reno cringed and held up two fingers, then slunk away out of the room.

The Turk leader and the doctor exchanged a few words in the language she had spoken earlier. Nanaki had learned a word or two from the ninja girl, but none of the ones he knew came up. Perhaps this was a different dialect, from some other part of Wutai. She had once proudly informed him she could speak a dozen of them. The veracity of that he had never been able to determine.

The two humans had fallen silent. She was busying herself with her task, while he had turned his eyes on Nanaki. Tseng's cool scrutiny reminded him of others in Shinra's employ, who had regarded him with the same aloofness as they poked and prodded their "specimen". In this one, though, it was coupled with the quiet strength of a fellow predator; evident in the poise of someone who knew how to fight and what it was to fight well. Nanaki kept his twitchy tail in check and met the man's eyes with a steely gaze of his own. They kept their eyes locked, even as the door swung open and Reno trudged back in.

"Trouble in paradise?" Dr. Uzuki asked breezily as she slipped something into a small plastic bag, oblivious to the tension that had been mounting behind her back.

"Something like that," Reno chuckled, rubbing his neck.

"And with good reason." Tseng had lapsed into that grim look he had worn upon his arrival.

"Just so ya know," Reno continued, casting a glance at his leader, "Fitz'll be giving you a call later. She needs to sort out some work stuff with the hospital."

"And I'm to be the errand girl who makes it all happen, huh?"

"'Fraid so."

"Wonderful," she sighed.

"Thanks, Linnie. Lunch is on me for a week straight. You pick the place." He grinned and waggled his eyebrows. "And if you'd like me to bring a certain mister tall-dark-and-handsome with glasses and a sexy-looking scar on his face, I'm sure that could be arranged."

Tseng finally looked over at the other two, raising his eyebrows.

"Are you trying to coerce me into a relationship with a patient?" She snorted. "You really are trying to get me deported."

"I ain't trying anything!" Reno's grin grew crooked. "Just for the record, though, he ain't a Turk no more. Meaning he ain't your patient. Just saying."

She didn't reply right away. Her gaze slowly drifted up and out of focus.

Tseng cleared his throat. The doctor started, then shook her head as though to rid herself of her thoughts.

"Let's just get on with the reason you dragged me here, shall we? So I can finally head back to work." She held out the plastic bag to Reno. "Found one of those 'details' you were asking for."

He raised it toward the light, tilting it this way and that.

"A bracelet?"

She nodded. "I can't tell much about the arm it was attached to without a thorough examination, but the bracelet looks like it belonged to a woman."

"Anything on the rest?" Tseng asked. He had stepped closer to examine the bag in Reno's hands.

"Well, looks like we have no more than two bodies here, and it would seem the other one had questionable taste in clothing." She held up another bag, which contained a ragged scrap of fabric. The soot and the singed edges could not hide its gaudy, purple sheen.

"Well, fuck me." Reno grabbed it and waved it in front of Nanaki's face. "We know a guy who wears a jacket like this, don't we? Well… Used to wear one, I guess."

"Friend of yours?"

"Nah, just some poor bastard who led us straight to the bad guys the other day." Reno's brow creased in thought as he looked over the charred remnants. "Wonder if someone's cleaning up loose ends? Risky way to do it, though. Make it flashy enough to get noticed and you'll soon have a whole bunch more loose ends to worry about."

"Perhaps they were setting an example," Tseng offered. "A punishment for endangering their operation, to 'motivate' the rest."

"Heh. Don't get any ideas, boss man."

Tseng gave him a dark look. Reno grinned weakly, and held up the bracelet baggie.

"I'll, uh, clean this up a lil'. Maybe it'll tell us something 'bout the fried woman."

He pulled a paper napkin out of his pocket as he wandered off to one side and poured the bag's contents into it. Nanaki couldn't see anything beyond the napkin Reno was fiddling with, so he turned his attention to the other two.

"Talk to the pathologist once he has had a chance to look at these," Tseng was saying to the doctor. "See if you can confirm these educated guesses of yours. Get their names too, but be subtle about it."

She snorted. "You don't ask for much, do you? You do realize I'm known as 'the Turk doctor' at the hospital, right? No forensic pathologist with the CID is going to gossip about their cases to me."

"Just do your best, Lin. And stay clear of trouble, if you can help it."

"Whatever you say, Uncle."

Tseng sighed.

"I wish you wouldn't call me that."

"Feeling old, Uncle?"

He gave her a sour look.

"Sorry, Uncle," she said airily, packing away her instruments. "I like you, but not that much."

Nanaki eyed them curiously. He would not have guessed it, for they appeared too close in age. Then again, human kinships were not his forte, as they varied so much from place to place. Back in Cosmo Canyon – well, before it had become the pilgrimage it was these days – he could usually identify a person's family members by scent alone. In places like Edge, though, that often told him who a person worked with instead.

Sensing a sudden stillness behind him, Nanaki looked over his shoulder. Reno was staring down at his hands, silent and unmoving.

"What is it?" Nanaki asked.

All he got in reply was a shuddering breath.

Alarmed, Nanaki came to the man's side and looked at the item he was holding. It was a slim silver chain, short enough that it had to be a bracelet. Two names, separated by a tiny heart, were engraved onto a flat bar, their elegantly curved lines still black with soot. The first name meant nothing to Nanaki.

The second was "Isa".


	14. In the Doghouse

**A/N** : There's more fanart of this fic! The artist, Jeemh, has a collection for them over at AO3 now, and is also on Tumblr as jeemh-files. Don't forget to say something nice while you're there! You can also go to my tumblr (themossstomper on Tumblr) for a link to the fanart tag under "My FF7 stories".

Thanks to the readers who have commented, but who I can't respond to directly. I see you and appreciate it! :D

* * *

 **14\. In the Doghouse**

* * *

The street outside the warehouse remained still and quiet. The black Turk car lurked in the shadow of another building farther down the street; Nanaki had seen Dr. Uzuki enter it, but its darkened windows hid her from view. The two Turks had stopped just outside the warehouse door, some twenty paces from him, and were speaking in hushed voices.

"Bodies chopped up and fried, then just left there? Along with this?" Reno held up the bracelet, wrapped tightly around his fingers. "I'm thinking they weren't trying to hide a goddamn thing."

Tseng frowned. "A warning?"

"Yeah. 'Back off or get fried'. A warning for us, just as much as for the people we work with." Reno ran his thumb over the engraved bar. "Wasn't exactly a secret that Isa was talking to a Turk. No need to hide it, back in the old days."

Nanaki wondered if they knew it would take more than that to keep their conversation private while he was around. He wasn't going to point it out to them, though. He was working on this, too; he deserved know what his fellow investigators were planning. But it was not resentment alone that kept his ears pricked. He sensed a change in the red-maned one, like one could taste a storm in the air right before the clouds rolled in. Unlike a storm, though, he didn't know how to heed this warning.

"Everyone knows there's just four of us left," Reno was saying. "I'm having one helluva time finding people who'll talk to me, 'cause they don't think we can protect 'em anymore. And I ain't so sure they're wrong. Just look at Isa. Fucking _Isa_ , Tseng!"

Reno's voice climbed higher with every word, until it almost broke on her name. He squeezed his eyes shut and drew a long, slow breath.

"Edge is growing fast, too fast for the four of us," he continued, his voice trembling with barely contained emotion. "We need numbers, okay? We gotta start recruiting again."

Tseng had listened silently, his expression unreadable, but at that he sighed.

"The situation is untenable, I agree. But we have other priorities right now."

"Course we do," Reno muttered and turned his head toward in the warehouse door. "We always fucking do."

The line of Tseng's mouth tightened.

"I'll have someone drop a hint about this," he inclined his head toward the warehouse, "to the CID. You dig deeper." He took a moment to study his fellow Turk. "I trust this won't cloud your professional judgement?"

Reno's lip curled in a bitter smile.

"Let's hope it don't. Ain't like you got someone else to put on this." The smile vanished as soon as he took a step toward Nanaki.

"One more thing," Tseng added. "I had a reason to come looking for you. Kilmister gave me a call."

Reno stopped and turned back; Nanaki couldn't see his face, but he saw his shoulders slump.

"Look, Tseng, just–" He exhaled sharply and rubbed his eyes. "Later, all right? Later."

After an appraising look, Tseng nodded once.

"And stop ignoring my calls."

"Yeah, gotcha."

Reno did not look up as he stalked over to Nanaki.

"C'mon," he said flatly. "We got work to do."

* * *

They walked until the warehouses gave way to high-rises and the streets grew thick with people, at which point Reno hailed a cab. Both the walk and the ride were spent in a simmering silence – broken only by the crinkling of the battered pack of cigarettes that had reappeared in the Turk's hand – so Nanaki knew not where they were going. He certainly didn't expect their first stop to be at the hospital.

They followed a receptionist whom Reno had talked into escorting them to… well, wherever they were going. The Turk had barely said a word. He trudged down the hall with stooped shoulders and his hands in his pockets, barely glancing at the doors and signs they passed. Nanaki trailed after them at a prowl, his muscles bunched tight beneath his skin. He may have been in this building before, but never in the research wing. The smells were different from the wards and the basement, the sounds were different – but different in a far too familiar way.

The woman opened one of the doors and waved them in with a smile that moved only her lips. The room was furnished entirely with white countertops across cupboards with white doors; these lined each white wall and formed a small island in the middle of the floor. Nanaki surveyed the laboratory equipment piled high upon them as he followed Reno around the island. He had his feral side leashed tight, but the "XIII" burned into his shoulder itched.

The number was right above the mark of his tribe. One was a brand, the other a traditional modification of the skin that produced black fur; yet humans assumed the two were connected. Some days he found it a relief, not to be instantly labeled a _specimen_. Other days, their ignorance felt like an insult to his people, to his very being. Here, in this place of science, this day was one of those.

His tension eased a little when he picked up on a familiar scent, along with a voice he knew well. Tess FitzEvan stood on the other side of the island, deep in discussion with Lin Uzuki. The women were roughly equal in size and both wore white lab coats, but that was where their similarity ended. Everything about Dr. Uzuki, from her hair to her nose to her limbs, seemed drawn with sharp straight lines. Tess, with her heart-shaped face and loose curls, was a human made of softer curves – but there was nothing soft about the glare she leveled at Reno.

"Oh, for crying out– I can't get rid of you, can I?"

"Hey, Fitz! How come you're here?"

Nanaki blinked and looked up at the Turk beside him. Gone was the silence and the gloom, as if his mood had magically changed the moment he had crossed the threshold.

"You know damn well why I'm here, Turk," Tess spat.

Nanaki's confusion only grew as he watched a grin spread across Reno's face.

"Oh, yeah," the Turk said. "Oops."

"'Oops'? That's all you have to say for yourself?"

"What else do you want me to say, babe?"

She turned pointedly away to address Dr. Uzuki instead.

"I'll need another incubator. Who should I ask about it?"

The doctor glanced at Reno, then at Nanaki, her eyebrow cocked. Reno smiled innocently. Nanaki could only offer her a puzzled tilt of his head.

"I'll get you the lab technician's number," she told Tess.

"Great, thank you."

Nanaki eyed Tess as she scribbled something in the papers in her clipboard. He knew she was a scientist and had learned not to hold it against her, but the sight of her in a white coat made his tail twitch nonetheless. So did the anger that radiated from her taut jaw and the harsh scratching of her pen.

He glanced at Reno, who was sidling up to his chosen one. The man's slouch spoke of nonchalance, but his movements did not; he approached her like an unseasoned hunter facing unpredictable prey.

"Fitz, baby… Any chance you've taken a look at that stuff I gave ya yesterday?"

"I would have, if I still had my bloody lab!"

He raised his hands, showing her his palms.

"All right, all right. Me and Furball will get outta your hair, then." He had taken a step back, but there he lingered, and the grin crept back onto his face. "How about a kiss for the road, babe?"

"Sure," she said without looking up from the clipboard. "How about you kiss my ass?"

"Aw, don't be like that. I said it was an accident, yo."

" _You_ are nothing but one big walking accident waiting to happen." She scowled at him over the top of her clipboard. "Now get out before you set this lab on fire, too!"

Nanaki blinked, then looked from her to Reno. The Turk was already sauntering to the door, chuckling. He winked at Dr. Uzuki on his way out.

"She loves me, really."

"The hell I do," said Tess, still scribbling furiously on her clipboard.

After one more impish grin in her direction, the Turk was out the door. Nanaki glanced at Tess, but she didn't look up. With a flick of his tail, he headed after Reno.

In the corridor, he was once again startled by the abrupt change in the man's demeanor. His head now hung from his sagging shoulders, as if he had used up the last of his strength to put on that act of his in the lab.

"What was the meaning of all this?" Nanaki demanded once he had caught up with Reno – which wasn't hard, the way he was dragging his feet.

"Dunno. Nothing much." Reno shrugged. "Just checking that she's all set here, that sorta thing."

Nanaki glanced back at the door. It had closed behind them and he could no longer hear the women's voices.

"You did not tell her," he said, keeping his voice low.

"Tell her what?"

"The fate of your informant."

Reno turned away as the tension seeped back into him.

"She had a fucking name, y'know."

Nanaki snapped his tail. Why did this human have to make every conversation a chore? How could he help Reno, when he didn't understand half the things the man chose to do?

The double doors at the end of the corridor swung open. A whole mob of people spilled through the doors in a swell of chatter and flashing cameras, headed up by two men with graying manes. Nanaki recognized the one in the dark blue suit: Mayor Hart.

Reno swore under his breath and veered left at the nearest junction.

"This fucking guy is everywhere," he mumbled, redoubling his pace as he strode away from the ruckus.

He kept it up until they reached an exit that brought them onto a side street outside the hospital. There, Reno stopped and let his head fall back and stared at the sky. The sun was hiding behind a wispy gray shroud, which thinned the light to a pale haze and seemed to drain the color from the city around them. Dozens of people flowed around them on the sidewalk, going about their daily business. Smiling or lost in their thoughts, chatting or talking into their phones. Sipping drinks from cardboard mugs.

"How strange it is to realize," Nanaki mumbled, "that none of these humans have seen what we have seen today."

His words met with silence. Reno squeezed his eyes shut.

"Y'know what?" he muttered, rubbing his eyelids with his thumb and forefinger. "I really need a goddamn smoke."

A few steps down the street he leaned back against the wall. He had already brought out his weathered pack and wedged a cigarette between his lips, then produced a lighter and lit up. After his first deep breath, Reno made a face and cast a sour look at his cigarette, but raised it back to his lips as soon as he had exhaled the smoke.

Nanaki went over their meeting – confrontation, really – with Tess in his mind, trying to piece it all together. He recalled the lingering smell he had picked up from Reno that morning, acrid like chemicals – or smoke. He mulled over the conflicted messages the man had presented the night before, just before he had left, but their connection to this fire Tess had mentioned eluded him. The closer Nanaki examined it all, the less sense it made.

"Did you really set her lab on fire?" he finally asked, breaking the silence.

"Maybe?" Reno eyed the cigarette in his fingers. "Might've dropped a smoke in the wrong place. It's happened before, yo."

Nanaki noted the shadow of a grin.

"This _pleases_ you?"

"C'mon, who doesn't like a good fire, eh? Ain't quite the same as a kick-ass explosion, but–"

" _She_ does not. _You_ should know that!"

Over a slow drag, Reno met Nanaki's glare with a searching look of his own. Then he turned away.

"'Course I do."

His smile remained, but the longer Nanaki watched it, the less it fit the rest of his expression. A suspicion formed in his mind.

"You knew she was elsewhere."

"Well, duh. I got eyeballs in my head, don't I?"

"That morning, you asked me to keep her at the house. You _made sure_ she was elsewhere."

The Turk filled his lungs with more smoke.

"It was no accident, was it?" Nanaki pressed.

"You're smarter than you look, Furball. Keep it to yourself though, all right? Gotta have her fume at me for a while or the Prez might think she was in on it."

Why did he even try? Every answer he teased out of the man only served to confuse him more.

"Your games confound me," he growled in frustration. "Why would you do this?"

Reno shrugged.

"Getting away from Healen and Shinra for a bit, seeing people who ain't Turks... It'll do her good."

"And your solution is to set things on fire?" Nanaki huffed. "Do you ever tell her _anything_?"

Reno's face went dark.

"My _solution_ ," he drawled, locking eyes with Nanaki as he pushed himself off the wall, "is to fight fire with fucking fire. I'll burn shit down, if that's what it takes. Hell, I'll blow shit up. I ain't taking any more of the Prez's bullshit lying down, and I ain't gonna let her do it either!"

His gaze was still firm and unblinking. His whole being seemed to seethe with some challenge Nanaki didn't fully understand. Nanaki's feral side prickled, raised its hackles – but it was rash and foolish to rise to a challenge on instinct alone. Nanaki carefully lowered his tail and inclined his head in a human nod.

"Very well," he said, for the lack of anything wiser.

Reno took a deep breath, but right as he seemed on the verge of saying something, the hospital door swung open.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," he muttered and slumped back against the wall.

Two men came out of the building. One of them was a hulking brute of a man, the other the gray-maned one in the blue suit they had seen just before. Nanaki expected to see the gaggle of reporters hot on their heels, but no one else emerged before the door swung shut. As soon as the mayor spotted Reno, his face lit up with recognition and he headed their way. Unsure of what it might mean, Nanaki backed up until he was side by side with the Turk.

The mayor slowed to a halt as he looked Nanaki over, pausing at each mark on his flank.

"Oh, my. That's a very impressive…" He squinted at Nanaki's mane. "Dog?"

Reno snorted. "Not exactly."

Nanaki lowered his head and stared at the man, but kept his teeth hidden. Around unfamiliar humans, it was wiser to be circumspect.

The mayor's tongue darted across his lips.

"He's, uh… friendly, I hope?"

A crooked smile spread across the Turk's face.

"Why don't you ask him?"

The mayor barked out a laugh and shuffled closer, with a cautious glance at Nanaki. He pointed at Reno, giving him a smile that was mostly teeth.

"Reno, isn't it?"

"Remember me, huh?"

"Turks did tend to stick out at the old office. Especially one as…" The mayor chuckled and gestured at Reno from top to toe. "... _remarkable_ as yourself."

Reno coughed out a tired laugh amid puffs of smoke.

"Flattery, huh? Guess that can only mean one thing. So, let's get to it. What do you want?"

"Straight to the point, I like that! It's the sign of a man who can get things done."

Reno took another slow drag of his cigarette. The mayor's smile wavered, then returned at full strength.

"Well, Reno," he said, lowering his voice, "I understand you're having a look into this Glimmer business."

"Now where might you have heard a thing like that?" Reno asked, arching an eyebrow.

The mayor chuckled. "Oh, I may have a few connections with the CID."

"Figures," Reno muttered, and sucked in more smoke.

The mayor glanced around and took a step closer.

"My contact tells me they have a new lead," he said in a conspiratorial hush. "The safe house of this, mm… this _gang_ that's involved."

"What's that got to do with me?"

Reno kept a casual tone, but Nanaki noticed the lingering look he gave the other man. The mayor must have noticed it too, for he broadened his smile and took another step closer.

"Well, you know how it is with the CID. They have to follow protocol, do things by the book." He rolled his eyes; purely for the sake of showmanship, as far as Nanaki could tell. "Meanwhile, these hoodlums are _poisoning_ the streets of Edge! I can't have that, not when I'm trying to put this city on the world map where it _belongs_. This is a critical time, Reno. We can't risk damning our city's reputation with rumors like this, before we get a chance to show what we can do!"

A cold smile crept onto Reno's face as he listened to the mayor's impassioned speech.

"Bad PR's a bitch, huh?"

"Now, now, no need for that kind of tone." Hart placed his hand over his heart. "I'm only acting in the best interests of Edge."

"Uh huh. So what kind of 'best interests' got you talking to a Shinra Turk?"

"Well…" The mayor leaned in and lowered his voice again. "Like I said, you're a man who gets things done. If you were to… acquire the address to that safe house, you wouldn't waste time wallowing in bureaucracy, now would you? You would go there, and you would deal with it. Am I right, Reno?"

"You might be."

The mayor flashed another one of his toothy smiles.

"Good, good! I'm glad we had this talk." He held out his hand. "Best of luck with your case, Reno."

Reno glanced at the mayor's outstretched palm. He said nothing, but he grasped the hand and shook it.

The other two men left the way they came, back into the hospital. Once the door had swung shut, Reno planted his cigarette between his lips and opened his fist. In his palm sat a tiny folded piece of paper, which he unfurled and read, before slipped it into his pocket.

"Well, kitty cat. Looks like we've got ourselves a lead."

"You trust this man?"

"Trust him?" Reno snorted. "Hell no, but ain't like we've got anything else to go on right now." He dropped the stub of his cigarette and ground it out with his boot. "So, c'mon. Let's go find out just how bad an idea this is, yo."


	15. Clouded Minds

**15\. Clouded Minds**

* * *

The shadows had grown long by the time Nanaki and Reno climbed out of their cab near the northern perimeter of Edge. The one cast by Midgar already cloaked the lowest shacks in darkness. Nanaki felt his hackles slowly rise. Much of it had to do with the herds of humans that loitered outside the bars and hole-in-the-wall restaurants along their route, whose suspicious eyes followed him and Reno as they passed.

"Keep your eyes peeled," the Turk muttered under his breath. "Ears, too. Mayor Hart sure didn't send us to the nicest neighborhood."

"Perhaps he hopes we will disappear."

"Heh, sneaky. Sure sounds like the way he might go about it, except he's got no need to get rid of a Turk. Far as I know, at least." His eyes flicked from one point to another in a ceaseless jig. "Plenty of folks 'round here won't mind seeing one of us go down, though."

As they passed an alley, a warm breeze billowed Reno's jacket and blew the stink of the Turk's cigarette into Nanaki's face. He wrinkled his nose – it was fortunate Reno hadn't asked him to keep that sense "peeled".

The address meant little to Nanaki, but Reno led them on with confidence to a side street that itself was barely bigger than an alley. The other end of it was blocked by a dumpster that had tipped over, fortunately not in their direction.

"Oughta be that door there, right before the dumpster." Reno pointed, though Nanaki wasn't sure which one he meant at this distance. "You know the drill by now, yeah?"

"I watch, you speak."

"You got it, Furball."

Nanaki was happy with this division of labor. He had no idea how to approach this situation, but it seemed the Turk had a plan.

A very straightforward plan, it turned out – once they reached the door Reno had indicated, he simply knocked. Nanaki picked up on hushed voices inside, then a shuffle of footsteps.

"I hear several inside."

"Expected as much," Reno murmured.

The door jerked open at last, but only as far as its safety chain would allow. In the gap, two puffy eyes peered out of a slack face, partly obscured by dark, stringy hair.

"Yeah?"

"You live here?"

The man looked Reno up and down with a sluggish gaze.

"What's it to you, suit?"

"Safety inspection," the Turk drawled. "Gotta make sure all buildings on this street are up to code, yo."

"Huh?"

"Means I gotta come in and take a look around, which means _you_ gotta open this door for me."

Nanaki side-eyed Reno. He had expected something… subtler.

The guy behind the door was staring at the Turk, too. Nanaki assumed he had to be processing what Reno had told him, though his face showed no sign of it.

"Nah," he finally said.

"Got a reason to go with that 'no'?"

The man's lips twitched in a smile that might have been snide.

"I don't like your tone, man."

"Yeah?" Reno bared his teeth in a wolfish smile. "Well I don't like your face. Guess that makes us even."

Not a single muscle moved in the man's apathetic face as he lifted his hand, middle finger raised, and began to push the door shut.

"Fuck off, assho–"

Reno's hand shot in through the gap and grabbed the man's wrist. He yanked it out just as he rammed his shoulder into the door. Nanaki jumped at the other man's scream, but the adrenaline was already coursing through him. Instinct snarled at him to assist, to protect, and as Reno skipped back from the door, Nanaki smacked his front paws into it, his whole weight behind them, and tore the door chain right out of the wall. The door flew aside like cardboard and the man behind it stumbled back and fell, accompanied by the panicked cries of his companions.

A gangly youth in baggy clothes doubled over, his yelling cut off by Reno's fist to his gut. The Turk sent him crashing into a wall with a knee to the face, just as a third man rushed him with a bat held high. Nanaki crouched to spring, but Reno dodged the man's blow with ease, and sent him to the ground with a heel to the temple.

Three men on the ground, in about as many seconds. Yet there would have been an even quicker way.

"You could have used your Sleep materia," Nanaki said as Reno tried a door in the back.

"So?"

Nanaki remained silent, confused by both the answer and the challenge in it, and Reno returned to his search. He grimaced at the grimy bathroom behind the door he had opened and was quick to shut it again. A second door across the room was locked.

Reno strolled over to the slack-faced man Nanaki had knocked down. Blood was pouring out of his nose in a steady stream; Nanaki idly wondered if that was his doing, or if Reno had drawn first blood with his sneak attack.

The man was still out cold; Reno slapped his cheeks until his eyes blinked open.

"Wha…?"

His dazed question became a yelp as Reno unceremoniously rolled him over.

"Ow, fuck!" The man covered his bleeding nose with a hand. "The fuck's your problem, man?"

He tried to curl up, but Reno put a quick end to that by planting his knee in the small of the guy's back, flattening him to the floor.

"That fucking door over there is my problem." The Turk had raised his voice to be heard over the man's spitting and cussing, but each word was enunciated with an icy calm. "It's locked. Open it now, or I start snapping fingers." He grabbed the hand that was clawing at the floor and placed the man's pinky finger in a firm hold, bending it backwards. "Starting with this one."

"Okay, okay!" the guy wailed. "I'll fucking do it, okay, but I need my fucking fingers for it!"

With a cold smile, Reno let go.

"Smart." He straightened up and stepped back, all in one smooth motion. "Keep being smart and you might just walk outta here with everything still attached."

The man got his unsteady hands and knees under him and slowly pushed himself up, dripping red dots onto the yellowed linoleum. With one hand pressed up against his nose to staunch the bleeding, he shuffled sideways to the door, trying to keep and eye on both Reno and Nanaki at once.

"I gotta get my keys," he stammered, reaching for one of his jeans pockets. "I need my fucking keys, okay?"

"Just keep it slow and steady."

The man followed Reno's orders; a little _too_ well, for Nanaki's liking. By the third time he missed the keyhole with his shaking fingers, Nanaki was practically vibrating in place. Reno stood still, though, off to one side of the door, his face blank as he watched.

At last the man managed to shove the key in. He turned it, then went for the handle.

"That's enough," Reno ordered and pointed past his shoulder. "Back into that corner there. Keep your hands where I can see 'em."

As the man stumbled back with one hand in the air and the other over his gushing nose, Reno turned to Nanaki.

"Anyone behind this door?"

Nanaki drew a deep breath, but the copper of blood and the stink of Reno's cigarette were overpowering. He stepped up to the door, pressed the side of his head against it. He heard the ticking of something electronic and the quiet burble of water, but nothing like movement or breathing. He caught Reno's eye, shook his head, and backed away.

The Turk turned the handle and nudged the door with light push. As it swung open he peeked in, then snuck into the room beyond.

Nanaki had to step sideways to see around the door. Reno stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by tables that appeared to be cobbled together from wooden pallets and crates. Every surface was covered by plants with spindly leaves, packed into tight rows under bright, fluorescent lights.

"This is it?" Reno barked, glowering at the plants.

The man in the corner tried to shrug his shoulders while keeping his head tilted back and his nose pinched.

"It's all we got, man, I swear."

With a groan of frustration, Reno kicked one of the tables hard enough to send the plants rocking.

Nanaki eyed their opponents. Two of them were still down, but he didn't want to risk giving the third a chance to strike, so he investigated with his nose instead. There was something familiar about the sweet grassy odor that wafted in from the backroom, but Nanaki couldn't place it.

"What are those?" he finally asked.

"Oh, _fuck_ ," the man beside him whispered, goggling at Nanaki as he tried to press himself farther into the corner. "Fuck me, oh shit, fuck…"

"It's loco." A tremble had crept into Reno's voice, cracking his frosty calm. "These guys are just growing fucking loco weed."

Reno turned on his heel and stomped out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him. As Nanaki followed him out into the street, he glanced back. The only one still conscious had sunk to his haunches beside the door they had made him unlock and was hugging his knees. He stared at Nanaki, the whites of his eyes stark against his bloodied face, mumbling frantically to himself.

By the time Nanaki set a paw on the sidewalk, Reno had already marched a good ways back up the street. Nanaki caught up with him in a few bounds.

"You intend to just… leave them?"

"The hell else would I do with 'em?" Reno growled. "Ain't like these guys are gonna come after us or anything. They're just a bunch of pissant lil' loco punks." He stopped to kick an empty can. "That fucking Hart asshole wasted our time!"

The can rattled along the asphalt until it ran out of momentum and stilled. Reno glared at it, as if wishing to set it on fire with his eyes alone. Nanaki shifted his weight from side to side. He had seen too much violence among humans to be fazed by Reno's behavior toward the loco growers, but this seething anger was a different matter. Nanaki knew it so well… yet he didn't understand it in this one. Reno laughed and grinned and joked, even when it was wholly inappropriate. Nanaki had never seen him fester like this.

"Speaking of leaving… where does this 'leave' us?" He tilted his ears forward, hoping his play on words might lighten the mood.

"Stuck in a fucking dead end, that's where," Reno spat, as if he hadn't noticed the attempt at all. "We got no leads, no suspects. Not a fucking thing, except dead bodies!"

Nanaki let his ears droop. So much for wordplay, and that was one of very few he felt confident enough to make in this language. As he looked toward the mouth of the makeshift alley, he saw several curious faces peering in. The noise must have drawn them. Who knew how many more were lurking out of sight?

Perhaps it was better to act than to speak, with so many ears around. And better to seek a new hunt, than to dwell on the one that had failed.

"Then perhaps we need to retrace our steps," he suggested after a moment's thought.

Reno turned his head for a brief appraisal.

"What do you have in mind, Furball?"

"Let us seek them through their victims. Their paths obviously crossed recently. In most cases more than once – but there is one who was not involved in our quarry's business."

Reno's jaw tightened as he looked back to the street.

"Isa, huh?"

He stalked off again without waiting for a reply.

Nanaki watched him go, stunned by the strength of his own disappointment; then realized that this was the first suggestion he had made during their cooperation. At every turn he had followed the Turk's lead, and now that he suggested something of his own at last, the man turned away?

Within seconds, Nanaki had caught up with Reno again.

"Yes, Isa," he said, eager to prove that his ideas were worth following, too. "If we go to her apartment, I can pick up her scent. Perhaps we can find new clues along her trail."

They walked in silence a while, side by side. Nanaki's tail swept to and fro without pause. Was it his idea that Reno was brooding over, or something else? Something to do with this Isa? Nanaki still didn't grasp the nature of their relationship. He practically fizzed with curiosity, but he didn't know how to pry without seeming… clumsy. Every city, every village, every _gaggle_ of humans seemed to have their own unspoken rules as to when and how to ask about such things, and the Turks were thoroughly detached from the few customs Nanaki knew.

Reno slowed to a halt, his face grim.

"Fine. Let's do it."

* * *

The same middle-aged woman sat in the lobby office of Isa's apartment building, weaving a ball of yarn into a scarf with the aid of thick, clacking needles. Reno flashed her his ID and spoke a few quiet words. She went pale, and turned whiter still as she exited her office and got a good look at Nanaki. She brought them to the second floor, unlocked the door with shaking hands, and hurried straight back downstairs.

Reno didn't bring out the latex gloves. He just stood in the middle of the room, his hands in hard fists at his sides, and let his gaze wander. Uncertain, Nanaki remained by the door and focused his own senses.

The couches and chairs looked soft and inviting, and the plush rug that covered the floor felt pleasantly thick under his paws. The scent of Gongagan blossoms drifted in the air, as strong as if the flowers themselves were in the next room. A quiet ticking came from a wooden clock on top of a bookshelf that was a hair taller than Nanaki. Several framed photos clustered around it; Nanaki recognized Isa, often in the company of a smiling man with a tidy beard.

Reno crossed the room with leaden footsteps and disappeared through a door. When Nanaki followed, he found him sitting on the edge of an unmade bed, his head bowed and his elbows resting heavily on his legs. Nanaki stopped on the threshold and averted his eyes, shifting his weight from paw to paw.

On a dresser to his left sat a photo of the same smiling man Nanaki had spotted in the living room, right next to a half-burned candle. He picked up a whiff of spiced orange; the aroma would no doubt grow stronger when the candle was lit.

"I never thought they'd–" Reno took a shuddering breath, still staring at his restless hands. " _Fuck._ "

Had it been someone Nanaki knew better, he would have made some attempt at consolation, but he didn't know what kind of comfort to offer this one – or if he wanted any at all, from one such as Nanaki.

"Who was she to you?" he asked instead.

Reno groaned. "If you're gonna bring up that messed-up sniffing of yours again, I swear–"

"I am _not_ , but your grief is impossible to miss."

"Can't hide anything from ya, huh?"

"You hide many things from me. This is not one of them."

Reno sighed and covered his face with both hands, then ran them through his hair. When he raised his head, his eyes were rimmed with red.

"I knew her before I became a Turk. We were friends." He fixed Nanaki with a look. " _Only_ friends, no matter what you think you sniffed out. She was friends with my sis first, and I'm pretty sure she never really stopped seeing me as the lil' snot-nosed brat El had to keep outta trouble." He attempted a smile, but it died on his lips. He looked down at his hands, now back in his lap, and twisted the silver ring back and forth around his pinky finger.

"She didn't mind me joining the Turks, or filling me in on the gossip now and then. Didn't mind being seen with a Turk either." He snorted softly. "Hell, maybe it gave her a lil' extra cred in her line of work."

Nanaki cocked his head to the side.

"Serving coffee…?"

"Nah, back then she was a–" Reno eyed Nanaki, then shook his head. "Nevermind, kid. Don't matter what she was. She gave it up anyway, when she met a guy and moved in with him above plate." He glanced at the man who was smiling at them in the photo on the dresser. "Nice guy, what I knew of him. Electrical engineer for Shinra. Died of the Stigma last year."

He held up his hand and tapped the silver band on his finger.

"This was his. Got a bit of magic on it, protects against electric shocks. After what Linnie told us I figured it wouldn't hurt, so I asked to borrow it." He snorted and let his hand drop into his lap. "And now Isa's the one who got fucking fried to death."

"The ring's protection is too weak. It could not have–"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Ain't enough to fight off a mastered thunderball on its own. Hell, if the shock hadn't worked, they'd just have finished her off some other way. That ain't the point, though. They got her 'cause of _me_. 'Cause I asked questions, and she answered 'em." He looked out over the room, gritting his teeth. "I'm such a fucking _idiot_."

Nanaki could have argued his claim. _You cannot be sure of that. You could not have known_.

But for once, Reno was easy to read. His words, his voice, his body, all told Nanaki one thing: this was a man who had lost his balance. Reason would not be of use here.

"We will find them," Nanaki said instead. "We will find them, and we will stop them."

"Yeah," Reno ground out. "We'll stop 'em all right." He rubbed his hand over his eyes, blinked a few times. When he looked out over the room again, they gleamed icy blue. "Get her scent. See if you can pick up her trail outside. If we're lucky, it might bring us to where they came for her."

He pushed himself off the bed and strode past Nanaki, but he only got halfway through the living room before the front door swung open. Inspector Thorne stood in the doorway. She wasn't surprised to see him, nor was she pleased about it, judging by the way she glared. Reno responded with a bitter twist of his lips that wasn't quite a smile.

"Well, well, if it ain't the Thorne in my side."

"I thought I'd made myself clear," she said, biting off the words.

"You told me to stay the hell away from your crime scene. Far as I know, this ain't one of 'em."

She dropped her chin and swept into the room, with a uniformed officer hot on her heels. The officer took up station by the door, but Thorne came to a halt only inches from Reno.

"I told _you_ ," she jabbed a finger at his chest, "to stay the hell away from _my investigation_. The occupant of this apartment has been murdered, as I'm sure you already know."

They may have been of equal height, but she seemed to tower over Reno nonetheless. He met her fuming glare with a blank face.

"I heard, yeah."

"I could have you arrested for obstructing justice."

Reno groaned and pressed a hand over his eyes.

"Give it a rest, Thorne. It's been a rough day."

"Looks like it."

She pointedly watched his hand as he dragged it down his face and lowered it to his side. Reno followed her gaze with his own, down to his knuckles – his red and swollen knuckles. He shrugged and slid his thumbs into his pockets, keeping his bruised hand in plain sight.

"Nothing a Cure won't fix, yo."

The inspector returned her stare to his face.

"I know she was a contact of yours. Is that why you're here? To tidy away some inconvenient Shinra secrets before we roll up?"

He locked eyes with her.

"I'm saying goodbye to an old friend."

She snorted. "A _friend_?"

He just looked at her, his face carved from stone. Thorne faced him with blatant disdain. As she watched him, though, Nanaki could see her expression soften.

"This apartment is under investigation," she insisted, quieter this time. "I have to ask you to leave."

"Yeah. I get it."

He took a step toward the door, but the inspector held up a hand.

"And I'll need to see what's in your pockets before you go."

"Seriously?"

"You know the rules. And _I_ know you spend most of your time breaking them." She patted the table. "Let's get it over with."

Reno gave her a withering look, then squared his shoulders and sauntered back to her.

"Keys," he said, dangling them in the air before dropping them on the table. "ID. Wallet. Knife." Once a dozen or so items lay on the table, he spread his arms. "All of 'em mine. Happy now?"

Thorne looked over at her partner and flicked her chin. Reno didn't give him so much as a glance as the man went through his pockets; he just kept his eyes locked with the inspector.

"Wanna pat down the furball, too?" he asked once the other man had stepped back with a little shake of his head.

Thorne narrowed her eyes. "Just get out of here."

Nanaki expected Reno to rile up the inspector some more as he pocketed his things, but he kept quiet. His silence lasted until they had left the building and were halfway down the block.

"Lemme know if you smell something."

Nanaki glanced up. Reno's face was as flinty as his voice.

"As you wish." Better to act than to speak. Better to seek vengeance, and closure.


	16. Direction

**16\. Direction**

* * *

Nanaki and Reno combed the streets outside Isa's apartment building in an expanding spiral. It was slow going; Nanaki had hundreds of scents to sift through on Edge's busy streets. He was beginning to think there was no trail left to find at all, when a hint of Gongaga drifted his way at the mouth of an alley. The scent of blossoms grew stronger as he ventured deeper, until it submerged into a new kind of smell.

"Got something?" Reno had followed him into the alley. His face was still set in hard lines, but his voice trembled with an intense kind of hope.

"She was here. There is also something else…" Nanaki took in as much as he could of this new scent. "The stink of a motor vehicle is strong, but there is something odd about it."

"Yeah? How so?"

"The core of it is Mako, as one would expect…" He closed his eye and breathed in more of it. "But it is not pure. I taste something pungent and almost… sweet."

" _Sweet?_ "

"It is the best word I can think of in your language to describe it. It is a smell I remember from my cubhood. The old dune buggies reeked of it."

"Huh. Could be gasoline, maybe. Reeve says it used to be the main thing before people figured out how to refine Mako." Reno closed his eyes and drew a breath through his nose, mimicking Nanaki's sniffing. "I've heard a bunch of people are trying out different fuel mixes, now that Mako reserves are running low. If that's the case here, then it ain't working too well."

"Why do you say that?"

"The smell of gas in the exhaust means some of it ain't getting burnt as fuel. Could be a leak, too." He pushed his hands in his pockets and bent over, surveying the asphalt. "So, what are we thinking? She walks past this alley here, and the bastards jump out and grab her?"

Nanaki took another deep breath, then shook his head.

"It does not fit. I smell no fear."

"You can smell something like that?" Reno asked, eyebrows raised as he glanced over. "It's gotta be more than a day by now."

"The air here is still. The scents linger."

"Not afraid, huh?" he mumbled as he straightened up. "Yet she got into the car. Must've been someone she trusted then. A friend?"

"She did say she was meeting someone."

"A client, yeah, but a paycheck alone wouldn't have been enough to get her into a stranger's car." Reno paused for a moment's thought. "Guess it could've been one of her clients from the old days. She had a bunch of regulars back then."

"Any who could be involved in this Glimmer business?"

"Hard to say. Most of her regulars were top-platers. Even had a couple from the upper floors of Shinra HQ. Ain't the kinda hobby your average slummer could afford, y'know?"

Nanaki still had no real idea what her profession might have been, but he had gleaned enough from Reno's reluctance to explain it to assume the details would only make them both awkward and uncomfortable.

"I will take your word for it."

"Heh. You're making a habit of it, ain't ya?" Reno's smile was barely there, but it was the first attempt he had made since Isa's apartment. "Thing is, though, lotta fortunes have changed since Meteor. Wouldn't be surprised if a few of 'em could use the gil these days. Might even have the business savvy to set it all up."

He shoved both hands into his hair, pushing it out of his face as he slowly pivoted around. For the first time, Nanaki looked around for himself – he had been too focused on the smellscape to use his eye. Not that there was much to see. It was an alley much like any other, though the other end was blocked by a brick wall. A couple of garbage bins were pushed up against another wall, near a door by the dead end. No windows; perhaps that was why it had been chosen as a meeting point.

"So we got a possible friend or old client," Reno muttered, "driving a car with a crappy fuel system. Better than nothing, I guess… though not by much."

"How do we use this information?"

"That's a damn good question." He sighed, letting his hands fall. "I know a few of her friends, but I'm more curious about the client angle. Trouble is, whatever list she might've kept from the old days probably got lost in Meteorfall… and even if she kept something like that, ain't no way Thorne's gonna let us search her place now. The clients she told me 'bout ain't gonna do us any good either, since most of those ended up meeting a Turk sooner or later."

"I do not follow."

"She'd only rat out the ones who were up to no good. That was our deal, back in the day."

"She got her…" Nanaki fumbled for the word Reno had used, "…'clients' into trouble with the Turks? Why would anyone hire her?"

Reno shrugged. "A bunch of people involved with Shinra figured the Turk connection kept 'em safe from blackmail. Besides, wasn't just her own clients she'd rat out to us. She kept her ear to the ground, had a bunch of contacts in the business."

"So… Where does that leave us?"

"Looking up refitted cars, I guess." He grimaced. "Fuck, that's gonna take forever. Most people don't wanna talk about that sorta thing to just anyone, 'cause whoever figures out how to make it work is gonna make a lotta gil. Don't want Shinra stealing their secrets."

"A justified fear, is it not?"

"Who the fuck cares?" Reno spat. "I ain't looking to steal any goddamn secrets right now, and that kinda thinking ain't gonna do us any favors! That's the point here!"

His words echoed off the narrow walls. He squeezed his eyes shut, pinching the bridge of his nose, and heaved in several breaths. Nanaki deemed it best to wait in silence.

"We also know that we followed that dead dealer the same night we found their hideout," Reno finally continued in a calmer voice. "Meaning he was killed _after_ they cleared outta there, meaning someone's still running around with that thunderball."

"True… But how does that help us?"

"I dunno. Fuck." He pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes. "I can't even think anymore."

Nanaki glanced at the narrow strip of blackness above them, then at the mouth of the alley, which was already bathed in the fluorescent glow of streetlights. Focused as he had been on the scents, he had barely noticed the darkening sky.

"It is late. Perhaps we should… sleep in it."

" _On_ it, Furball. Sleep _on_ it."

Nanaki's tailed drooped. The Cosmo Canyon version of the saying was so close, and yet…

"But yeah, guess you're right," Reno added, rubbing his eyes. "Standing around out here all night ain't getting us nowhere. C'mon, let's get to the safehouse. Time to call it a night, yo."

* * *

By the time they reached the Turk safehouse, Nanaki felt the weight of the day with each weary step. But to his consternation, Reno slowed to a halt at the front steps.

"Well… here we are," he mumbled.

"Shall we not enter?"

Reno shifted his weight, but he didn't make a move toward the glass door before them.

"Thing is," he said slowly, "it's a bit of a tight squeeze for three."

"Three?"

"Yeah. Fitz is staying here while she's using the labs at Edge Gen."

Puzzled, Nanaki studied the fidgeting man.

"You must have known that when you decided to bring us here."

Instead of answering, Reno sighed and marched up to the front door. He unlocked it and held it open for Nanaki – but didn't follow him inside.

"Do me a favor, will ya? Keep Fitz company tonight. Don't want her alone in town with these guys on the loose."

Nanaki tilted his head. "You will not join us?"

"Nah." The man chuckled; a lifeless sound, one he had been making all day. "She ain't exactly happy with me right now."

"I see."

"Don't get your hopes up, kitty cat. She'll come around."

Reno stuffed his hands in his pockets and gazed up at the building. The hard lines of his face shifted, softened; but before Nanaki could see what lay underneath, the Turk turned aside and headed back the way they had come.

"See ya tomorrow," he called over his shoulder before the door swung shut.

Nanaki watched him through the glass as he pulled the worn carton of cigarettes from a pocket. Reno tapped one of them out as he trudged down the street, but he vanished from view before he had lit up. Nanaki continued to stare after the Turk, strangely torn. It wasn't right to split the pack at night.

But if he did follow the man, how would he explain this gnawing in his gut? Reno was a two-legged one, who followed human customs and conventions. Why should he care for Nanaki's notions of packs and instincts? No… It was better to just grant the favor he had asked for. With an uneasy flick of his tail, Nanaki headed for the stairs. He hadn't paid enough attention in the elevator to remember which floor the safehouse was on, so he let his nose guide him.

It was indeed Tess who opened the door he arrived at, but a strange look flitted across her face when she saw him. As soon as she had greeted him, she leaned out to peek into the hallway.

"You didn't bring the jackass?"

"He chose not to bring himself."

"Figures," she huffed and stepped aside to let him in.

The apartment looked much as he remembered it, only now it was Tess's belongings that were scattered around the room, not Reno's. The warm, fluffy scent of baked goods hung in the air; the source of it became clear when Tess reached for the toaster on the countertop and pulled out a pair of round slices, embossed with a grid pattern. Waffles, Nanaki guessed. Aerith had coaxed him into trying some on their way through Junon, though those ones had not popped out of a toaster.

"Thought I'd give myself a treat," Tess said. "Want some?"

"Only if they come with whipped cream."

"Sorry." She picked up a glass jar from the counter and waved it in the air. "All I've got is apple sauce."

"Then I will decline."

"Not a fan of apples, huh?" She gave him a half-hearted smile, and sighed as she looked over the cupboards. "This place used to be better stocked, back when we'd spend most of our free time in Edge. Then Reno started getting called in for last-minute jobs every weekend, so I'd just make myself useful in the lab back home instead. I haven't been here in… God, I don't even know. Months."

"Not even by yourself?"

With a wry chuckle, Tess looked down at the jar in her hands.

"If it was just me, I'd never leave the lab. I can't just waste time doing nothing. Not when more and more people are dying every day." She adjusted her grip on the jar and began to twist the lid open. "I spend all my evenings in the garden, because Reno worries if I spend them in the lab. I can still think while I'm pulling up weeds."

She swore as the jar slipped, spinning uselessly in her gloved hand. She spent a few moments searching for a better grip, then stopped with a sigh.

"And..." She paused, absently running her fingertips over the back of her damaged hand. "I'm not the same as I was in Cosmo Canyon. Not after..." She glanced down at her arm, then gave him a melancholy smile. "Fending for myself here today... It's been a little terrifying, honestly." She laughed. "I wish I'd brought my armored suit."

"My days in Edge have been intimidating as well. Yet here we are, alive and well."

She smiled, then returned her attention to the jar of apple sauce. The jar resisted her efforts, though. After it slipped out of her grip for the fourth time, she smacked it down on the countertop.

" _Tabarnouche!_ Now I really wish I'd brought Sparky." She looked at Nanaki and tapped the lid. "Don't suppose you've got any bright ideas for how to deal with this thing?"

"The last time I needed something from a jar, I broke it." Nanaki drew back his lips in a smile, and she laughed.

"Yeah, that's not going to cut it here. I prefer my apple sauce _sans_ shards of glass." She paused, and looked him over with narrowed eyes. "But… I have an idea." She rounded the counter and came up to him, jar in hand. "Open wide."

Five minutes later, the floor was splattered with apple sauce and a couple of Nanaki's teeth felt funny from the effort of keeping a glass jar in place, but their combined efforts had put an end to the jar's resistance. Tess hummed happily as she spooned apple sauce onto her waffles.

Once she had cleaned up after them, they sat down at the table. They sat in silence at first, but not for long. After just a few bites, her hand went still.

"He did it on purpose, didn't he?"

Nanaki felt his whiskers twitch.

"Partners in crime now, huh?" She chuckled. "It's okay, you don't have to admit to anything. I know full well that Reno doesn't have 'accidents' like that. There's always method in his madness."

"You are correct about him, but we were not 'partners' in this. I did not learn of it until after."

He had promised not to tell her, but she had figured it out on her own. He wasn't breaking any promises.

"Makes sense," Tess said thoughtfully. "If my hunch is correct, he was planning something like this long before you showed up in town." She stared at her plate with an odd smile on her face, then picked up her PHS from the table. "Took me a while to realize it," she continued as she tapped out a message. "I was too upset at first, because I thought he'd done it to force me out to Edge to sort out this Glimmer thing for him."

"You do not believe that anymore?"

With a sigh, Tess set down her phone.

"No. Setting my lab on fire may have been a big flaming 'fuck you', but it wasn't aimed at me. I'm not the one who owns that lab, after all."

Nanaki thought back on his conversation with Turk after their hospital visit. Fighting fire with fire.

"Rufus Shinra," he concluded.

With a crooked smile, Tess nodded.

"I should've guessed sooner. A few months ago, Rufus showed up to express his 'concerns' over my safety, were I to go to Edge alone. Reno wasn't happy when he heard about it." She picked up her fork and stabbed it into her waffle. "He figured the bastard wanted to scare me into staying within easy reach. Wouldn't surprise me if that's when he started planning this little stunt."

A silence fell as she ate her treat, one bite-sized chunk at a time, giving Nanaki a chance to reflect. Not that it did him much good, because these twisty paths of human intrigue were making his head spin. Reno had been right about one thing; issues like these were more straightforward among Nanaki's kind. How much easier would human lives be, if they hadn't been cursed with such puny senses of smell?

"Well, enough about my maddening relationships," Tess said as she scooped up apple sauce with her last piece of waffle. "How is _your_ investigation going?"

Nanaki paused. Had it really been only a day since they last spoke? The thought of explaining all the new twists and turns was exhausting.

There was one thing he needed to say, though. Something that had gnawed at him ever since he watched Reno leave.

"We made a… troubling discovery. There has been another death." Nanaki hesitated. "Reno knew her."

With a gasp, Tess looked up. "Not one of the Turks?"

"No, but it was someone he had known for many years. He is upset."

"Shit." She glanced at her PHS, frowning. "He didn't say a thing to me."

"That was what I suspected."

"Hang on." Her frown deepened. "Did you two already know this at the hospital?"

"…Yes."

"That _infuriating_ jackass," she groaned, slumping back in her chair. "Why doesn't he just _tell me_ these things?"

Nanaki swished his tail restlessly.

"I… could not say–"

The rattle of a key in the front door made them both look up. The door swung open to reveal Reno, still in his disheveled uniform. Judging from the tantalizing whiff of something sweet and rich, the flat box tucked under his arm contained more Hearts of Gold.

"Uh, hey," he said, rubbing his neck as he looked from one of them to the other. "Did I interrupt something?"

His eyes lingered on Tess. Nanaki had seen that look on his face earlier, when Reno gazed up at the building.

"Worry not," Nanaki said, hopping down from his chair. "It is time for me to retire. Good night, Tess."

"Oh, you don't have to leave," she said as he headed toward the front door. "Stay the night if you like. We can set you up here in the living room."

"Thank you… but I have excellent hearing and I am sure this one," he inclined his head toward Reno, "intends to make amends. Vigorously."

Reno sniggered. "Good one, kitty cat."

"Great," Tess groaned. "He's rubbing off on you, isn't he?"

Nanaki smiled at them both on his way to the door. Reno held it open for him; his knuckles now Cured and bruise-free, Nanaki noticed.

"Thanks, Furball," he mumbled under his breath.

Nanaki responded with a glance and a flick of his ears.

He had intended to leave directly, but once the door fell shut, he found himself dawdling, ears pricked for the slightest sound. For a breath or two, he heard nothing.

" _You can be a real pain in the ass, you know that?_ " Tess's voice, warm and gentle.

" _Yeah._ " A muffled, half-hearted chuckle. " _I know._ "

She sighed, which turned into a quiet laugh of her own. " _Come here already._ "

With a satisfied swish of his tail, Nanaki took that as his cue to leave.

* * *

 **A/N** : The next chapter(s) might be a little delayed, because I'll be traveling for a few weeks and I'm not sure what my situation will be like re: internet and free time. Maybe I'll be able to swing a chapter or two, but if not, the weekly schedule will resume once I'm back. Stay tuned!


	17. Twists and Turns

**17\. Twists and Turns**

* * *

Nanaki spent the night at Seventh Heaven. Tifa had her hands full with the bar, so he exchanged only a few words with her, just enough to check that the couch was free. In the morning he left before his hosts had risen; his PHS had remained dark since his misadventure in the storm drain, so he needed to catch Reno while he was still at the Turk safehouse. It was a terrible way to reward a friend for her hospitality, but he vowed to make it up to Tifa later, once his duty was done.

The hour was early, the streets still quiet. Quiet was relative, of course, in the center of a city of this size, but it was enough for Nanaki to decide to brave one of the broad avenues that stretched out from Edge's central plaza like the spokes of a wheel – or like the sector dividers of a city plate raised high above the ground. Edge echoed its broken predecessor in more ways than one. How much of it was deliberate, Nanaki wondered as he wandered down the avenue, observing the facades and the faces he passed. Had its people settled into the old sectors they knew, comforted by some semblance of familiarity, or had they seized the opportunity to make the changes they had longed for?

His people would have sought out the familiar, followed the old traditions. From what he knew of humans, some would do the same, some would seek the opposite, and some would act with no clear motive at all. Clear to him, that is. What had once seemed random and bewildering, he was now beginning to view as simply… different. Different values, different priorities. Was that why these people had thrived, and his were on the brink of extinction? The world had changed, after all, and for good or ill, the humans had changed with it.

Before him, the houses and towers of Edge stood silhouetted against the rising sun. A playful breeze caressed his face on its way past, carrying glimpses of dry, night-cooled sands from the plains in the east. The stink of rust and decay was barely there now that he had crossed the plaza; how much of it blew in from the ruins of Midgar? With the hulk of that cursed city safely downwind at his tail, Edge felt like a new city.

New, yes – but hardly fresh. Every alley he passed sent a whiff of oily rot his way, a reminder of his grim task. Some changes were too much even for humans. Nanaki sighed and picked up his pace to a trot.

He noticed their scents before he saw them, carried to him on the breeze. Reno and Tess were strolling toward the hospital, side by side, chatting over their take-away coffees. He was presumably escorting her to her new lab for her day's work, and would likely return once they parted ways. They were too far down the street for Nanaki to catch up with them before the hospital, anyway. So, Nanaki sat down by the safehouse entrance and watched them while he waited. He couldn't see their faces, but their arms brushed up against each other as they walked; their movements were easy, free of tension.

At the doors they faced each other, touched their lips together. Reno touched her mane, too, and she his chest, smoothing down the front of his suit. With a smile she turned and disappeared into the building.

Nanaki studied Reno as he sauntered down the street, a cardboard cup in one hand and the other in his pocket. His shoulders were looser, his chin held higher, and though his smile only lifted half his mouth, it made his whole face seem brighter.

"Morning, Furball!" he greeted as he arrived, enveloped in a cloud of coffee and spice. "Have a good night?"

"Not as good as yours, it seems."

Reno chuckled and took a sip from his cup.

"Yeah, gotta admit it put a smile on my face. Hers, too."

"You… talked?"

"Among other things." He winked. "But yeah, we talked. Now that she knows why I did it, she ain't so pissed off anymore. A _lil'_ pissed off, sure, but ain't like she's gonna kick me out or anything. Made me promise never to set foot in her lab again without her say-so, tho'."

"It is a promise you will keep, I assume?" Nanaki asked, though his tail was already moving in an approving swish.

"Believe it or not, Furball, I don't like making promises I can't keep. Besides, ain't like I'm trying to make her life harder. Just want her to, y'know… enjoy the life she's got here, such as it is."

"You want her happy."

"'Course I do." Reno smirked. "The sex is better that way."

Nanaki tilted his head, looking the man over. A few days ago that kind of talk might have annoyed him, but after seeing the way Reno looked at her, the way he touched her… It was now merely puzzling.

"Yet you keep doing that."

"Doing what?" Reno asked absently, raising the cup to his lips.

"Talking about her as though you are only interested in breeding."

The man choked on his coffee and doubled over in a sudden coughing fit.

"Whoa, okay," he sputtered, "Just for the record, 'breeding' is a whole 'nother ballgame for us humans. Ain't no 'only' about that."

"Apologies," Nanaki said, though he couldn't keep his ears from tilting forward. "I fear no one has taught me the finer details of... human relations."

"Yeah, well, why the hell would they? I'll bet everyone back in your hometown still thinks you're a kid or something. Which I guess you are _,_ kinda. Fuck, I keep forgetting that." Reno kept on rambling as he wiped his mouth on his sleeve and brushed stray droplets off the front of his jacket. "Ain't like it's easy to explain, anyway. Hell, I'm still figuring it out, this thing I got going with Fitz. It's a good thing, I know that much, even if 'breeding' ain't on the cards. I mean, not yet, at least. Since that sort of thing is, y'know, a pretty big deal, and, uh…" He cleared his throat. "What the hell were we talking about, anyway?"

"Your evening."

"Oh, right. Well, ain't much more to tell. We're good, more or less."

Nanaki stayed politely quiet as Reno took another sip; the man would likely not be pleased if Nanaki made him spit out the rest of it. Reno took his time rolling the mouthful of coffee over his tongue, studying him pensively.

"She asked about Isa. Guess that was your doing, huh?"

Reno wasn't flustered anymore, nor did he seem annoyed. If anything, he appeared calm. Serious, even. That alone made Nanaki shift his weight from paw to paw. Serious didn't seem right for the man.

"I mentioned you had lost someone," Nanaki admitted hesitantly, unsure as he was of the point of the question. "It seemed… appropriate at the time."

Reno stared down at his cup, as he slowly tilted it from side to side.

"I ain't very good at that kinda talk. Chitchat and jokes and shooting the shit, that I can do any day, but this sorta thing…" With a half-hearted smile, he shrugged. "Never know how to bring it up without making it all weird. So… thanks."

Nanaki's tail stilled in surprise, but before he could come up with a response, the man spoke again.

"Guess you two had a good chat too, huh?"

"We spoke of many things." Nanaki paused. His curiosity would likely make things 'weird', as the Turk had put it; but his worry would not be silenced. "She says you do not like what Rufus Shinra told her."

Reno raised his eyebrows and looked Nanaki over with a new kind of scrutiny.

"Ain't many people who like what the Prez tells 'em these days."

"She says he tried to frighten her."

Reno huffed and turned his head to look down the street instead.

"Guess he's getting impatient. Been throwing his weight around lately." He snorted. "Renamed the Cliff the other day. 'Healen Lodge', that's what it's called now. Fuck knows what that's supposed to be good for."

"He knows what she is, correct?"

Reno lifted his cup to his lips and took another long, slow sip of his coffee.

"Yeah," he finally said.

Nanaki's tail had picked up speed and slashed the air in restless figure-eights.

"You do not think this is cause for concern?"

"Nah, he's more interested in her saving his life with her sciencing. She's the reason he's still around, and he knows it."

"And if she succeeds? What happens when the Geostigma is no longer a threat?"

Reno was silent a while, staring into his cup.

"You do not think _that_ is cause for concern?" Nanaki pressed.

"Y'know what, Furball? You think too much, yo."

The man had put on one of his wry, crooked smiles. Nanaki huffed and looked away. Just when he had thought their conversation had gone beyond silly jokes…

A dark suit caught his eye. Another Turk, the one with the dark flowing mane, was striding toward them. His jaw was set and his eyes glinted darkly in the morning sun.

"We have company," Nanaki warned.

"Ah, fuck," Reno muttered under his breath and gulped down the last of his coffee. "Stay here, yeah?"

The cardboard cup crumpled in his fist as marched toward his leader. He flicked it toward a trash bin with barely a glance; Nanaki instinctively followed its path as it sailed through the air and into the bin. By the time he returned his attention to the street, the two Turks stood face to face.

"You're a hard man to pin down." The men had met up some twenty paces away, yet Nanaki had little trouble hearing Tseng's greeting.

"Sorry, boss man." Reno stepped up to the building beside them and leaned back against the wall. "It's the case, y'know. Keeps me up and running all day and night."

"How very convenient, for a man who wishes to avoid questioning," Tseng said dryly. "Care to finally explain your side of the story?"

"Dropped one of my smokes in the wrong place." Reno smirked. "It's happened before, yo."

"And somehow you never learn."

"Guess I'm as dumb as I look."

Tseng stared at his subordinate, working the muscles in his jaw.

"You've crossed the line. You know what's at stake here."

Reno's smile faded into nothing. "The Prez crossed it first."

"The President arranged a home for the two of you. Personally, I might add."

"Yeah, a house right next to his own. All the better to keep us under his thumb."

"Many would pay a minor fortune for a place like that." Tseng spoke slowly, with a calm that was nowhere to be seen in his taut body. "Don't let your personal feelings cloud your judgement. He is not your enemy, nor hers."

"So why does he keep freaking her out with all this 'protection' talk, huh? Maybe it's _your_ feelings making things all cloudy."

The dark-maned Turk paused.

"Is that what this is?"

Reno scoffed and looked out over the street.

"It's been almost two years," Tseng added. "Let it go."

"Nah, I think I'll hold on to it a lil' longer." The crooked smile had returned to Reno's face. "Just, y'know, 'til the Prez stops being a dick."

Tseng drew a measured breath.

"Not everything he does comes with a hidden agenda."

"Yeah? Well, he sure ain't given me much reason to believe that."

"Without Rufus Shinra, we'd all be dead," Tseng hissed. "Maybe it's time you acknowledged that fact."

"I work for the guy, don't I? I do what he says. Ain't that enough?"

"Not when you see fit to vandalize Shinra property!"

Tseng loomed, his shoulders squared and his back straight as a rod. Reno stepped up to his threat – no longer slouching, but coiled like a snake ready to strike. Nanaki felt his hackles rise as the two men stared each other down.

Slowly, Reno raised his hands, showing his open palms.

"Look. I made a point, in a language the Prez understands. No one got hurt, no research lost, minimal property damage. Clean the smoke out of the air ducts and everything's fine. In the mean time, Fitz and the team can work from Edge Gen." He spread his arms. "No harm done."

"Except for needless stress and wasted gil." Tseng retorted, his words crisply cut. "I cannot let this slide."

"Do what you gotta do, boss man. That's what I did." Reno pushed himself off the wall and turned to leave.

"You're not dismissed yet."

He swiveled back around in slow-motion. Tseng waited patiently until he was done, then spoke.

"I got a call from a contact with the WRO. Thorne has found this Glimmer gang you're after."

Nanaki tensed and pricked his ears, before he remembered that he was not supposed to be listening to their discussion. Fortunately Tseng's attention was squarely on his subordinate, while Reno had his back turned to Nanaki. The man had gone perfectly still.

"Huh?"

"A basement near Epiolnis and Tenth," Tseng explained. "She's making the arrests now."

"But… how?"

"Perhaps that is something you should ask her. Shall I give you a lift?"

Reno stroked his hand down the back of his head, until his fingers wrapped around his tail of hair.

"Nah," he muttered. "We'll make our own way. Got some thinking to do."

Tseng gave a single sharp nod.

"Yes, you do. Dismissed."

* * *

The crowds parted before them with wary looks, but for once Nanaki wasn't sure how many of them were for him. Reno stalked down the streets of Edge in silence, radiating a burning determination that kept others at bay. Nanaki wondered where the man's thoughts roamed, but he didn't pry. With so many eyes on them, it would have been impossible to keep their conversation private.

At the plaza, Reno steered them onto the southwest avenue before ducking down a side street a little beyond the halfway mark. Nanaki had never been in this part of the city before, but it was obvious at a distance which of the rust-eaten buildings was their destination. Gaggles of onlookers had gathered around a makeshift barrier of bright yellow tape. A single uniformed officer stood watch by the door that was cordoned off; Reno swept past him, Turk ID in hand.

"One moment, sir," said the officer, "I need to clear you with–"

He flinched back as Nanaki pushed past him. The Turk was already inside the building.

"Hey, wait a minute!"

Beyond the door was a flight of dusty concrete stairs into a cellar. By the time Nanaki joined Reno at the bottom of them, the officer was thundering down the steps after them.

"Sir," he shouted, "you can't just barge in here like that!"

A half-dozen heads turned their way, roused by the racket. All members of this "CID" the Turks kept complaining about, Nanaki surmised, from by their covered shoes and latex gloves. Tension seeped into his limbs; their frowns were far from welcoming.

One of the heads was familiar: Inspector Thorne was already striding toward them.

"I'll take it from here, officer," she called. "Return to your post."

"Yes, ma'am," the man muttered behind them and stomped back upstairs.

The inspector wore only a button-up shirt this time, with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. She seemed smaller without her billowing coat.

"Heard the CID nabbed a few bad guys," Reno drawled as she came to a halt in front of them. "Thought I'd check out this lil' miracle for myself."

Thorne folded her arms over her chest. The upward twist of her lips almost passed for a smile.

"Believe it or not, the CID is perfectly capable of detective work."

The basement had no interior walls, just regular concrete pillars as wide as a human that propped up the ceiling. Nanaki spotted tiny round holes in a few of them. A discordant prickle of gunpowder rose out of the general chemical stink, and behind it was a faint rusty note of blood; he kept his breaths shallow and far apart to keep most of the caustic blend out of his lungs.

The investigators had gathered around folding tables covered in tools and glassware and other equipment Nanaki had seen before. Reno's eyes lingered on the nearest table, just behind the inspector. An officer was flattening a zippered canvas bag like the one he and Nanaki had found in the storm drain lair. Two taped-up packages of glimmering powder were stacked on the table.

"How'd you 'detect' these Glimmer bastards, then?" Reno asked as he continued his visual tour of the basement. "Far as I know they covered their tracks pretty well."

"Anonymous tip. Seems the good people of Edge trust _us_ to solve their problems for them." Thorne looked him up and down, and the corner of her mouth rose just a little more. "Unlike some."

He returned his wandering gaze to the inspector. His face was blank as he studied hers, but Nanaki sensed a shift in the air.

"Got something to say to me, Thorne?"

She met his scrutiny with a steady stare.

"Maybe I do. I was just thinking that maybe we wouldn't have needed that anonymous tip if you'd told us what you knew about this gang, _before_ you went blundering right through their labs like a drunken elfadunk."

"And just how far did you get before I went 'blundering around', huh? Did you have any arrests lined up? Even a single fucking suspect?"

"Inspector!" A woman on the other side of the basement waved a PHS in the air. "Call for you!"

Thorne raised her hand in acknowledgement without so much as a glance over her shoulder.

"If you don't have anything useful to add," she told Reno with icy calm, "it's time for you to leave." She turned on her heel and left without waiting for a reply.

Reno showed no intention of leaving, though. He was eyeing the Glimmer packets again.

"Only two, huh?" He squatted down, bringing his head level with Nanaki's. "Any sign of that thunderball?" he asked under his breath.

Nanaki reached out, searching for that peculiar tugging at the edge of his awareness.

"None," he murmured after a few breaths. "I cannot sense any materia at all, save for what we carry."

"Dammit."

Their prey, it seemed, was caught; their hunt at an end. The sight before them should have brought satisfaction, but instead it made his tail flick back and forth, faster and faster. _They_ had caught nothing. Nanaki had no materia to reward his hunt. He was no closer to fulfilling his promise to the ninja girl; if anything, the goal was farther away, now that his only lead had shrunk into nothing.

A pair of legs walked in front of them, blocking their view.

"Are you still here?" Thorne demanded, sharper than before. "Is there a problem?"

"Yeah," Reno said, still frowning as he straightened up. "Something ain't right about all this."

"Such as…?"

"Too easy, for one."

Nanaki looked up at the man. The look on Reno's face brought a spark of vague hope, enough to hold his frustration in check.

" _Easy?_ " The inspector scoffed. "We've been working this case night and day, trying to sort out the messes _you_ left behind. Until this morning, all we had were dead ends and dead people."

"Yeah, that anonymous tip sure was convenient, wasn't it?"

She shrugged. "It happens."

"How about this, then?" Reno flicked his chin toward the table behind her. "When we hit up that drug lab, they had two whole gym bags full of product. Where's it all gone?"

A crease appeared between Thorne's eyebrows. She turned to look at the seized Glimmer on the table.

"Maybe they sold it already," she muttered slowly.

"Sadly, that is the likeliest explanation," a new voice cut in.

Nanaki's tail froze mid-swing. Thorne flinched and hurried to straighten up; Reno's jaw tightened before he turned to look. Mayor Hart was already on the last step of the stairs.

"They make it to sell it, after all," the mayor added, smiling broadly as he swept into the basement. His suited goon, tromping down the stairs on his heels, did not smile.

Nanaki backed away, trying to avoid the swell of manmade scent that preceded the mayor. The stinging chemicals must have numbed his nose, for him to have missed a fragrance as strong as this, but he would still have expected his ears to warn him of the man's arrival. Nanaki made sure to keep Reno on his blind side; his frustration was blunting his senses.

"Yes, sir," Thorne said, with a promptness that made him suspect she had said it a lot.

"Sell it that fast?" Reno protested. "They lost several dealers in the past few days, and we raided their main lab two days ago. They were running and hiding. That had to fuck up their operations!"

"Perhaps these people were better organized than you think."

An edge flashed in Hart's eyes as he said it, but it was gone so quickly Nanaki wasn't sure it had really been there at all. The scented cloud around the man made Nanaki's eye swim in his head; it was making it hard to be sure of anything.

"But that's all in the past now, thanks to your efforts," the mayor crooned. "Come now, it's time enjoy the satisfaction of a job well done."

"We will, sir," Thorne cut in quickly, "once we get everything wrapped up here."

"Of course, of course." The mayor pointed a finger at each of them in turn. "I can trust you two to be... discreet about this, yes? No public statements, no leaks to the press, and so forth?"

Reno raised his eyebrows.

"Really? I would've thought you'd welcome a bit of good PR like this."

"Good PR?" Hart huffed. "Do you think I want the world to know that Edge produces dangerous illegal drugs like this? Right now, this 'Glimmer' substance is a street rumor. If we go public, it will only highlight a problem most people don't even know existed. It's been dealt with, so let's just wrap this up quickly and _quietly_."

"You can count on the CID, sir," Thorne piped up again, ignoring the Turk's dirty look. "We'll be discreet."

"Thank you, Inspector." The mayor glanced at Reno, then turned back to her. "A private word, if you will?"

As he strolled over to one of the pillars near one of the quieter corners, Thorne pinned Reno with a glare.

"Did I not tell you to leave?" she hissed.

Reno threw up his hands and backed away toward the stairs with exaggerated steps. This time she watched them leave.

As soon as Nanaki stepped out of the building, he drew a long, deep breath to purge his senses. The rusty air of Edge had never tasted so fresh. The officer they had barged past was still at his post by the door. Reno waved to him on his way out, but the man only scowled at them as they ducked under the yellow tape.

"Well, that could've gone better," Reno muttered once they were out of earshot.

"They believe they have solved the case."

The Turk hummed and let his gaze wander over the crowd, loosely scattered on both sidewalks. His fingers tapped a restless beat against his thighs.

"You do not agree," Nanaki ventured.

"Do you?"

His first instinct was to say no; his whole body prickled with the disappointment of a thwarted hunt. He could not rely on instinct alone in this case, not with so much human deceit and subterfuge in play, but combined with the points Reno had made to the inspector…

"Something does seem… off," he admitted.

Reno nodded slowly.

"Know what, kitty cat?" His eyes followed Mayor Hart, who had reappeared from the basement. "My gut says that guy is fishy."

His words were as bewildering as always, but the tone of voice and narrowed eyes made his meaning clear.

"I agree," Nanaki said. "He is hiding something."

Reno nodded, watching as the mayor stopped for a chat with a small group of curious bystanders, under the vigilant eye of his hulking bodyguard.

"The more I think about it, the better it fits. First he sends us chasing a bad lead, now he wants to shut us down altogether."

"But how would a mayor be involved in this Glimmer business?"

"Bribes, maybe. Our Deputy Mayor Hart of Midgar never seemed like the most upstanding citizen back in the good ol' days. Maybe the real masterminds behind all of this paid him to get us off their backs." Reno pursed his lips in thought. "Whatever it is... I ain't so sure this is over yet."

Mayor Hart was moving again; heading for the sleek silver car a little farther down the street, Nanaki guessed.

"Should we tell the inspector?"

"Let's keep this to ourselves for now. For all we know, she's in on it."

A loud bleating rang out from Reno's jacket, startling him. He mumbled a curse as he pulled out his PHS.

"Hate this fucking thing," he grumbled. "The ringtones are the worst, yo."

A glance at the screen put an end to his griping, though, and he hurried to raise the phone to his ear.

"Hey, Fitz. What's up?" As she spoke, he visibly perked up. "That so? Hang on, the Furball oughta listen in on this." He tapped a key, then squatted down and held up the PHS in the air between them. "Okay, shoot."

" _So, like I said, I went to the 'RO with that sample of yours and asked around a bit. Found a guy in their R &D department who knows a thing or two about chemical analysis._"

"Yeah? You got something for me, babe?"

" _Well, there's one thing that'll interest you. Turns out the guy is a former Shinra employee who worked on materia casings back in the day, and he knew the chemical profile on sight. It's ground-up materia, all right, but not just any materia. He says this sample comes from a prototype casing that never got released on the market._ "

"He's sure about that?"

Nanaki glanced at Reno, intrigued by the urgency in his question. The man held his breath as he stared at the device in his hand.

" _Yeah,_ " Tess said. " _He worked on it himself, apparently._ "

Reno covered his eyes. "Ah, fuck."

" _Is that bad?_ "

"Dunno yet," he said, rubbing his eyes, "but it _is_ something I gotta look into."

She sighed.

" _Guess I'll order in dinner for one tonight?_ "

"Nah, get some for me, too." He let his hand fall. "I might be late, but I ain't planning to run around all night again so soon."

" _Okay. Just remember to not get shot or stabbed, mister._ "

"Yeah, I promise," he chuckled. "Thanks a million, Fitz. I owe you one."

" _More than just the one by now,_ " she teased. " _Afraid I have to get on with my actual job. See you tonight._ "

"Yeah, see ya."

Reno was still chuckling as he slipped the PHS inside his jacket, but it became a sigh as he raised his head.

"Is something wrong?" Nanaki asked.

"Something sure ain't right, I can tell ya that much."

"Explain."

"A prototype casing would've been locked up real tight at HQ, because that's where all our materia research got done." He kept his voice low, eyeing the people standing nearby. "If any of those had gone missing we would've heard about it, meaning someone must've gotten in after Meteorfall. Someone who knew what to look for, and had high-level access."

"What makes you think that?"

"I went through the whole damn place with Rude, right after Meteor. Changed all the access codes to top-level ones, locked all the doors, soldered 'em shut if we had to. The materia lab was sealed up tight, behind a whole bunch of other locked doors. Ain't a place you stumble into by accident, y'know?"

Nanaki considered this.

"Who would know these access codes, then?"

With a sigh, Reno got up.

"Anyone with access to the top five floors of HQ back in the old days," he said as he bounced his weight from one foot to the other, recovering from the crouch. "Ain't many of us left, though. Not since that Weapon blew the top off HQ, along with whoever was still inside it."

"The Turks had access, I presume?"

"Yeah, as did the Prez, the executives and their PAs, a few officials, a bunch of scientists on Hojo's team…" He made a face. "Can't say I like any of those options."

The mayor's silver car drew past them. Nanaki peered at the windows, but saw only his own faint reflection in the dark, inscrutable glass. Then the car was gone, leaving only a miasma of combusted Mako in its wake – tinged with the sweetish burn of gasoline. Nanaki went still.

"That car," he growled. "That is the one we seek."

Reno's mouth fell open as he stared first at Nanaki, then at the car.

"You're sure?"

"I am." Nanaki glowered at the rear end of the vehicle. "That is the car I smelled in the alley."

* * *

 **A/N** : For anyone confused by Tseng & Reno's conversation, the grudge Reno is holding onto is explained in _Hollow Men_.


	18. Rat Hunt

**18\. Rat Hunt**

* * *

Nanaki glared at the tail of the silver car that was swiftly carrying the mayor away from them.

"What are we waiting for?" he growled, limbs twitching with the urge to hunt. "He is getting away!"

"Easy there, Furball." Reno was staring after the car, too, but his hands were firmly in his pockets and his voice wary. "We can't chase him down in the street. We got nothing on this guy." He was silent a moment, then sighed. "Not a single damn thing that ties him to this mess."

Nanaki's ears drooped, as did his tail. "You do not believe me."

"After everything you've sniffed out about me?" Reno snorted. "Hell yeah, I believe anything your nose tells ya. Thing is, it's gonna take more than that to convince the others. This guy's got the whole fucking CID eating out of his hand. We got more digging to do, and we gotta dig deep, yo."

"You are a _Turk_. Who do you need to convince?"

"Fucking _everyone_ these days," he muttered. "Look. If he's the one who got Isa killed I want him fucking gone way more than you do, but the guy's a freaking _mayor_. He's a lil' too high-profile to just disappear." He paused, absently gnawing on his bottom lip. "Accidents can happen," he added, "but that sorta thing takes time, surveillance, planning…"

"You mean to kill him?"

Reno looked over at him, raising an eyebrow. "Ain't that what you meant?"

"I…" What _had_ he meant? His people preferred exile over death, but that was neither here nor there, half a world away from the Canyon. Other rules held sway here; human rules he could neither influence nor understand.

"Never mind." The Turk had lowered his steely gaze and was frowning at his feet. "Don't really matter anyway, 'til we find out just how crooked this fucker is. Right now, all we got is a car. Could be the driver who did it, for all we know."

"The _driver_?"

"Look, all I'm saying is we gotta get to the bottom of this so we don't do anything stupid. Taking down street punks is one thing. Messing with politicians can get real ugly, real fast, for everyone involved. We gotta watch our step, here."

Nanaki snarled, to the alarm of several bystanders. His legs were practically vibrating, his claws digging into the asphalt. He closed his eye for a recital. As the tension reluctantly drained from his limbs, his frustration became easier to manage.

"What do you suggest, then?" he asked, now without a growl in his throat. "We stalk them until we find proof?"

Reno stared across the street at the CID-infested building, his eyes narrowed in thought.

"Y'know, I'd like to follow a lil' hunch instead," he said slowly. "Ain't no way the CID nabbed all of these pricks, not when the mayor's involved, and when the rest of 'em know they got both cops and Turks on their tail now. Edge is too hot for 'em, so they gotta go elsewhere if they wanna keep their business going. Junon is crawling with the 'RO, which means the closest big city is Costa. Might just be big enough to have a market for their product."

"You think they plan to move their business there?"

"Wouldn't be surprised. Don't matter that much where they're going, tho'. My point is these guys are gonna need a ride outta here, which is where my hunch comes in. Since they've apparently got old Shinra access codes, they might've figured out that those open a bunch of our old Mako fuel depots around Midgar."

Reno had raised his head; Nanaki realized he was looking past the buildings now, at Midgar's looming carcass.

"You wish to search these depots?"

"You got it, Furball. Not all of 'em, though. Most are drained dry by now, so there's just a handful on the far side of Midgar I wanna check."

Nanaki looked up at the sky. The rim of the sun already touched the roofs of Edge's tallest buildings.

"We ought to hurry, then, if you wish to have your dinner before nightfall."

* * *

The black Turk car was waiting for them outside the safehouse; it must have been dropped off by one of the others after Reno's call to Tseng. Reno drove them straight through Edge, to the city's messy border with Midgar. In the shadow of the half-collapsed plate, it was difficult to tell where one city ended and the other began. Warehouses and shacks dotted the scavenged remains of Midgar's old Sector 4, spreading out beyond the protection of the WRO's guard towers, lit by their bright floodlights.

Just southwest of the tangled junction between the cities, Reno took them beyond the border guarded by the WRO. None of the guards they passed gave them more than a fleeting look. Nanaki figured they were more concerned by who – or what – might enter the city, than by those who might leave it.

"Good news is, ain't no need to go into the slums," Reno said as he turned onto a bumpy dirt road that followed Midgar's crumbling perimeter fence. "The depots were all on the outskirts of town, used for traffic that didn't need to go all the way up to the plate."

"What is the bad news?"

"Uh… everything else?"

Reno glanced his way with a wry smile, and Nanaki couldn't help but tilt his ears forward in turn.

As they drove deeper into the wasteland, a sense of foreboding began to creep in. Perhaps it was the hollowed-out shell of a city on their right, which spread out beside them as far as the eye could see. One by one, memories from the day of Midgar's destruction – and nearly the whole world's – drifted back. Their current task was hardly on the same scale, but the memories brought with them the same dark finality Nanaki had felt then. One way or another, it whispered, their hunt would end tonight.

But perhaps it was nothing more than the folly of an active imagination. Reno stopped the car several minutes from the first depot; to avoid detection, he said, but before they had even set foot within its concrete walls of their destination, Nanaki already knew there was nothing in there that cared to detect them. Faint imprints in the blackened dust were all that remembered the passage of tires and boots, and the air held no trace of human scent. Reno appeared to have reached the same conclusion, for he strolled into the compound in plain view. He kicked the rusty drums lined up along one wall, banged on the tankers tucked away under their roof of corrugated steel. Each of them boomed hollowly.

They repeated the process at the second depot, just outside Sector 6. This time Reno walked away with a frown on his face, tapping his mag rod on his shoulder.

"Last time I was here," he said as they headed for the car, "the gate was locked and one of those tankers was half-full. Someone's been here."

"If so, it was a long time ago. I could not smell any humans."

Reno sighed.

"Could be something, could be nothing. Just gotta keep going, I guess."

The badlands dirt was hard under Nanaki's paws and riddled with cracks. The ground was still warm, even though the light had grown dim. All that remained of the sun was a pink bloom along the horizon; when Reno started the engine, the sharp wedge of light that spilled from the front of the car was almost painfully bright.

"Can you see in the dark?" he asked.

"Better than humans."

The car's headlights clicked off again, plunging the road ahead of them into darkness.

"Then do us both a favor and keep an eye out. My eyes ain't bad, but better safe than sorry."

As the light faded away, the blackened wasteland began to blend with the void of the sky. On their left side the nothingness seemed to spread on forever, but among the ruins on their right, Nanaki glimpsed the occasional light. The ones that glowed warm like fire set off a strange longing in him. Once upon a time, such a light would have been the comforting sign of one of his kind. Here they likely signalled scavengers, picking Midgar's bones clean, or others who for one reason or another stuck to the fringes of society. Shunned, perhaps, like he was. Or hiding, like those he was here to hunt.

These idle thoughts lingered as Nanaki stepped out of the car for the third time. The night seemed alive, dancing with the breeze and rustling among the sagging shacks of the slums. In some ways it reminded him of home; the warmth of the dusty ground under his paws, the chill of the nighttime wind in his mane. But the smells on the breeze were wrong, the sounds foreign. The hairs on his neck slowly rose.

A new scent made him stop in his tracks. He raised his nose and inhaled deeply.

"Got something?" Reno asked under his breath.

"Humans. Several of them, with a vehicle." Nanaki turned his head, following the scent. "They came out of the slums, there." He nodded toward a gap between the abandoned shacks; it had once been a street, perhaps.

"Okay, nice and quiet now." Reno zipped up his jacket, then brought out his gloves. "At this point we just want a good look at 'em."

Camouflage, Nanaki realized as he watched the man pull on his black gloves. With the Turk jacket zipped up, Reno's body blended into the blackness of the badlands. Nanaki's red fur was better suited for Cosmo Canyon, but it was dark enough to remain hidden in nothing but starlight. Fortunately, his tail was still bagged up.

As they jogged along the rim of the fallen city, Nanaki heard a metallic boom in the distance, then another. He picked up voices just before he rounded a cluster of half-collapsed shacks and saw the depot's concrete walls. Light spilled out through the open gate.

Reno dropped into a crouch and gestured at Nanaki to do the same. Slowly they crept closer, advancing diagonally toward the gate, widening the angle of their view into the interior yard. Nanaki spotted a truck inside, covered by muted green fabric. Once the tail end of it came into view, he saw the people it had carried, heaving red steel drums into the back. As the stink of refined Mako prickled its way into his nose, a thrill jolted through him. Their hunt was back on.

"Looks like we got ourselves a bunch of thieves, yo."

Reno sounded as calm as ever. Nanaki swished his tail restlessly, wondering what he was waiting for, but the man remained still and watched the scene with narrowed eyes – then nodded and turned away from the depot.

"Let's go," he murmured. "Back to the car."

"What?" Nanaki sputtered. "But it is them. It must be!"

He rose up from his crouch, but Reno placed a hand on his back.

"Easy there, Furball. Let's see where they're taking the drums first." He glanced over his shoulder, then patted Nanaki's flank. "C'mon. We gotta be ready to follow these guys."

Nanaki's mind recognized the wisdom in Reno's plan, but his feral side had stirred and growled its frustration. He could ignore it for as long as he was loping back to the car, but once in the back seat it was like waiting on a bed of nails. It didn't help one bit that Reno kept the approach slow as he maneuvered the car toward the depot and stopped as soon as they glimpsed the lights. Once they watched the truck roll out into the darkness, though, a calm came over Nanaki. The truck's taillights convinced even his simplest instincts that the hunt had not been thwarted.

The truck followed the curve of the plate for many minutes, until the chainlink fence that surrounded the slums took a sharp turn and reached out into the badlands.

"Just as I thought," Reno muttered as they watched the truck pass through an open gate and enter the fenced-off area.

"You know where they are going?"

"That depot they raided? Aviation fuel, mostly." He raised a finger off the steering wheel, pointing past the truck. "Down that way is an airfield for the planes that were too big for the plate. Too far from Edge to be of much use these days… which makes it perfect for shady business."

The fence gates hung open, their bars bent and scraped as if something had crashed through them. The road made a sharp left and continued along the inside perimeter of the fence, but Reno drove straight ahead until they reached another fence on the opposite side of the enclosure. There he parked the car and shooed Nanaki out.

"Car's too loud," he explained as they set off on foot. "We've got at least half a dozen in that truck and they probably got friends waiting for 'em. We gotta stick to the shadows here, make sure we can take 'em by surprise." He appraised Nanaki with a lingering look. "Might have to take someone out all quiet-like to make sure we get the drop on the rest. That a problem for ya?"

A distant rumbling drew Nanaki's eye to the sky. He couldn't see anything against the stars, but lights had appeared on the ground in the direction of the noise.

"I hear an engine."

"The truck?" Reno asked, tensing.

"No. In the air."

"Then those down there gotta be runway lights." He broke into a sprint. "C'mon, we gotta move!"

The moon had risen. Less than half of its pale face was visible, but it was enough for Nanaki to find his footing at a run. The rumble of an engine grew louder, until at last he caught the glint of moonlight off the wings of a plane in the distance. It sank out of view, and soon he heard the screech of braking tires.

As a wide, squat building came into view, Reno slowed down and held up his hand.

"That's the main hangar," he whispered. "Looks like someone's inside." He pointed to one end of the building, where a rectangle was drawn into the wall with thin lines of light.

"Where is the truck?"

"In front, probably. Might even be inside. The plane is flying dark, so I'm guessing they wanna keep the rest of their shady business outta sight, too." He scanned the building from one end to the other. "Any guards out here?"

"The plane is too loud and the wind is at our backs," Nanaki said, flicking his tail in annoyance. "My senses are stifled."

"Shit. Guess we'll just have to be careful." He glanced around once more. "C'mon, let's see if that door's open."

Reno took off at a low run, heading straight for the hangar. Nanaki circled off to the side, hoping to find a better vantage point for the smellscape. As he came closer to the runway, though, the reek of aircraft fuel overpowered everything.

Reno had arrived at the hangar and was creeping along the wall toward the bright outline of the door. He was only a few paces away when it opened. He flattened himself against the wall while Nanaki dropped to an instinctive crouch, just as a figure stepped out through the door. The new arrival strolled out without looking back, rummaging in his pockets. Behind him, Reno's face shone pale against the hangar wall. If the man turned around, he would see Reno in an instant.

As the man wedged a cigarette between his lips, Nanaki began to creep along the ground, steady and quiet despite his pounding heart. Reno was inching toward the man too, slowly extending his mag rod. Two against one oblivious human. The man didn't stand a chance.

The door swung open again.

Reno whipped around, mag rod raised. His swing smacked into the newcomer's neck with a flash of blue, which downed the man in an instant. The first man gasped and turned, and Nanaki lunged.

 _Keep it quiet_ , flashed through his head. _Keep the surprise_.

The guy flinched back when he saw Reno. He drew a startled breath and reached for his weapon, just as Nanaki landed on his back and knocked him down. The air blew out of the man's lungs when he hit the ground, and as he struggled to suck in more, Nanaki closed his jaws around his neck. After a single sharp jerk that ended in a gratifying _crack_ , the man struggled no more.

Reno had stumbled backward when Nanaki pounced. He sat on the ground, his eyes huge in his face.

"Holy shit, Furball. You sure go in for the kill, don't ya?"

Nanaki stepped back from the limp man and shook his whole body in a reflexive shiver. Luckily, the man's hoodie had kept him from breaking skin. The taste of human blood had always made him feel filthy.

"Guardians defend," he replied curtly.

"Should I be flattered?" A grin had crept onto Reno's face.

Nanaki eyed him, taken aback by his smile. Most humans found Nanaki's use of his jaws disturbing. Even his friends among AVALANCHE would recoil from such a savage display at close range. Unsure of how to respond, he huffed.

"Just be relieved that I am on your side."

"Oh, I am, Furball. I sure am." With a snort, Reno hopped to his feet. "C'mon. Let's see what's inside."

The downed men had left the door unlocked. The short hallway beyond it was lit and empty. Reno turned off the light before they started making their way to the other end. The first door they passed led to an empty office. The second was wedged open with a brick, presumably by the men who had gone out for a smoke. The plane's engine had quieted, but a cacophony of voices, noises and smells flowed out through the gap.

Reno kneeled by the door and brought out his PHS. Puzzled, Nanaki watched him slip it past the gap, but his confusion cleared when an oddly-angled view appeared on the screen, of a small propeller plane surrounded by people. Several of them had gathered around the wing, shouting and gesturing at a man who was climbing a ladder and holding a fuel pump. Others clambered in and out of the plane, using a set of inbuilt stairs that appeared to also serve as the plane's door. Some of them carried familiar-looking black sports bags.

"Bingo," Reno mumbled under his breath.

The screen froze several times as he snapped a series of photos of the bags being hauled up the stairs and into the plane. He lowered the PHS and tapped through a few menus. He stilled for a few seconds, then frowned. He pressed a few more buttons and raised the phone higher.

"No reception," Nanaki concluded, noting the absence of telltale bars at the top of the screen.

"Yeah. The network's useless on this side of Midgar. Got a radio in the car… but the car's back at the gate." With a quiet groan, Reno dropped his hand. "I told Tseng where we were going, but it'll be hours before anyone comes looking. Fuck."

"I assume the plane will leave before that. We must stop it."

"Yeah, but we gotta figure out how first. They sure got a lotta assholes in there."

Nanaki recalled the view on Reno's screen, trying to count the humans he had seen. There had to have been at least a dozen.

"Materia?" he suggested. "Sleep?"

"Nah, too risky. Only half of 'em went down the last time I tried that on these guys. We need a proper surprise here. Got anything sneaky-like on ya that could work?"

"No. A few elementals and Barriers, that is all."

Reno clicked his tongue irritably.

"Guess we gotta get physical. Gotta be smart about it, though." He slid his phone camera past the door frame and tilted it to and fro, trying to see as much of the hangar as possible. "Gotta seal the exits, make sure no one runs," he murmured. "I can handle this one and make sure the hangar door stays down, but there's another side door across from here. You guard that one."

"How will I get there?"

"Go outside and around the back. Watch out for lookouts. Take 'em out if you find any and wait outside for my signal."

"What signal?"

Reno lolled his head back and stared up at the ceiling.

"Some kinda diversion," he muttered as he pocketed his PHS. "Something big and loud and distracting enough to give me a chance to sneak over to the hangar controls."

"There are shelves by the wall," Nanaki recalled seeing on the screen. "Tall ones, with machinery. We could push them over."

"That'd be loud, all right. Might even take out a few of these bastards at the same time." His face split into a wolfish grin. "I like it."

"Is it possible?"

"Leave that to me. I got more than a few tricks up my sleeve, yo."

"Then I shall go around the back and wait," Nanaki confirmed. "When I hear the signal, I just… barge in?"

"Pretty much. You got barriers, right? Use 'em. Crash in through that door, roar or something to make 'em piss their pants. Some might run, some might try to take you on. Make sure they don't get through that door, but be careful with the elementals. The CID's gonna get pissy if we kill _too_ many of these guys." He gave a crooked smile. "They'll be even worse if we set the evidence on fire."

"Understood."

"Okay, Furball. Let's do this."

He held up his fist. Nanaki booped it with his nose, then slunk out the way they had entered.

Outside, the two bodies lay where he and Reno had left them, slowly cooling in the night. Now that the plane's engine was silent, Nanaki could move quickly, confident that he would hear approaching humans long before they heard him.

The night was empty, however, and he found the second door without incident. He examined it by the light of the moon, considering his approach. According to Reno, it led straight into the main hangar. The volume of the sounds he heard from inside seemed to confirm it.

For once, fear would be his ally. Many traits of his kind intimidated the humans, but his living flame seemed to be at the top of the list. Nanaki brought his tail in front of his face and tore off the bag with his teeth, then crouched down and hid his tail under his body. Stealth and surprise were also part of the plan. As he waited, he mentally recited one battle verse after another, until his blood was roiling in his veins and his mind given over to the instincts of the beast.

A rumbling crash made the ground shake under Nanaki's feet. Panicked yelling erupted inside, quickly followed by another metallic avalanche. He hopped up on his hind legs and threw his weight against the door, pushing the handle down with a paw. The door flew open and banged into the wall as Nanaki landed on all fours on the concrete. Startled two-legged things scattered before him, screaming and flailing.

Guard the door, Reno had said, but Nanaki could do one better. As soon as he heard the door slam shut behind him, he focused upon it and roared a single word.

"Ice!"

The humans' shouts drowned out the tinkling of the spell, but he felt the spreading frost. A quick glance behind him confirmed that the door was frozen solid in a white corona of ice. With another mighty roar, he pounced upon his nearest foe and brought him down with his weight alone. The man cracked his head against the concrete and went limp, and Nanaki lunged at his next target. The humans screamed and fell as he leapt and pounced and swiped.

The glint of gunmetal gray warned him in the nick of time. He called forth a Barrier, just as a ripple of explosive bangs echoed through the hangar. The bullets smacked into his barrier in rapid succession and tinkled harmlessly to the ground. The noise ended when the shooter lit up in crackling blue, and he crumpled to the floor to reveal Reno behind him. Nanaki had no time for thanks; another pair of foes had realized that the door they had made a run for was sealed and were now charging at him, screeching in their desperate panic.

One of them swung a metal pipe as he came, which whipped past Nanaki's snout as he sprung aside. The other jabbed at him with a stiletto, frantic enough to force him back – until the man lunged too far, and Nanaki slashed his leg open with his claws. As he fell, Nanaki swiped again and sent him spinning into the hangar wall. The man with the pipe brought it down in a blow meant to break Nanaki's spine; he jumped away and the pipe gouged his flank instead. He snarled, more out of rage than pain, and downed the two-legged thing with a pounce. As soon as he had closed his jaws around the human's arm, he snapped his head back. Nanaki's feral side rejoiced at the satisfying crunch of bone, but the man's screams pulled him back to a sliver of his senses. He let go before he tore anything off and leapt back, scanning for more threats.

He found none. The humans were laid out flat on the ground: _all_ of them, including the Turk. He was awake, though, and spat curses as he clutched his side. As Nanaki rushed to him, the red smell of pain wormed into his nose.

"What is wrong?" It came out like a snarl.

"We ain't done yet, that's what's wrong," Reno growled, clambering to his feet with one hand pressed to his ribs. "Gotta secure the plane."

They had taken no more than two steps toward it when the door swung down and hit the floor with a metallic thump. The noise still echoed through the hangar as a stout, gray-maned man stepped out from the doorway.

"Well." Mayor Hart wrinkled his nose as he looked out over the bodies on the floor. "You've certainly made a mess of things."


	19. Tooth and Claw

**19\. Tooth and Claw**

* * *

Nanaki trembled with the urge to fight, mouth afire with the taste of wicked blood. Yet the Turk at his side remained still, chest heaving, wary. Nanaki forced himself through a quick recital, struggling to calm his mind and body. It had limited effect, but it was enough to rein in his instincts and let him follow Reno's lead.

Mayor Hart seemed oblivious to all of this as he strolled down the stairs of his plane, trailed by his towering goon. Hart stepped over a body at the foot of the stairs, then ambled on with his hands in his pockets as if he was taking a leisurely walk through the park – though he halted at a safe distance from Nanaki and Reno.

"It was you all along, huh?" Reno's chuckle rang hollow. "Should've seen that one coming."

Mayor Hart smiled a toothy smile.

"You're a pilot, aren't you, Reno?" he asked the Turk. "It just so happens that I'm in need of one…" He looked over the bodies strewn across the hangar, wrinkling his nose in distaste. "…Now."

"Seriously?" With a pained grunt, Reno straightened up. "You wanna work out some kinda deal now?"

Nanaki didn't like Hart's smile. Too much teeth, too much smarm, too _much_.

"Nothing wrong with that, is there? We could still turn this around, help each other out. End this messy business as rich men." He spread his arm, indicating the plane. "My cargo is worth millions to the right buyers. It's the deal of a lifetime, don't you think?"

Reno smirked. He had arranged his body into a semblance of his usual slouch and was slowly tapping his mag rod against his shoulder.

"Nah. Even a Turk's got some standards, yo."

Hart's smile grew wide, showing his gums. "Come now, be reasonable. Think of the little lady at home."

"That a threat?" Reno's voice dropped to a silken purr. "'Cause you really don't wanna threaten me and mine, old man. It makes me wonder why I don't just pulverize your twisted ass so I can be done with this shit once and for all."

" _You will do nothing of the sort._ "

Nanaki swung his head in alarm, hunting for the woman who had spoken. His excitement for battle had gotten the better of him. He knew better than to focus on a single target and to allow another to get the drop on him like this.

Inspector Thorne was marching across the hangar, her long coat billowing behind her. The side door, Nanaki realized. His ice had melted. Her jaw was set and her eyes gleamed like daggers as she stared from one man to the other. Nanaki received only a passing glance.

"So you're in on it, too." Reno scoffed. "Guess that explains all the bootlicking."

"In on _what_ , exactly?"

"Inspector, I'm so glad to see you." In the blink of an eye, Hart's demeanor had reverted to the pompous bleating of Edge's mayor. "Arrest this man at once!"

Thorne came to a halt several paces away, becoming the third point of their equilateral triangle.

"On what grounds, Mayor?"

"He's the one behind all this Glimmer business!" Hart jabbed an accusing finger at Reno. "He bribed my crew into transporting illegal goods on my plane. _My_ plane! Had I not stepped out at the wrong moment, or dare I say _right_ moment, I would have brought it all to Costa del Sol, none the wiser!"

"What a load of shit," Reno spat. "You really think anyone's gonna buy that?"

She frowned as she looked from one to the other, and settled back on the mayor.

"Do you have proof of your accusations?"

"Look around you!" He swept his arm in a wide arc, indicating the bodies on the ground. "He took out my damn crew! What more proof do you need?"

She didn't look around, though. She was still watching Hart.

"Now why would he do that, if they were working for him?"

"They refused to kill me, when he ordered them to." He sniffed and smoothed out his jacket. "At least they had that much left of their morals."

"Oh for fuck's sake, you're making me gag here." Reno turned to the inspector. "Thorne, this guy is rotten to the core. Most of these assholes on the ground ain't dead, they're just out cold. Ask 'em who told 'em to stop here, who told 'em to load up the plane–"

"Are you seriously going to listen to this man? After all the times he's sabotaged your investigation?" The mayor's jacket-stroking turned into a haphazard patting of pockets. "Ohh, my nerves are shot. You don't mind if I smoke, do you?"

He slid out a metal case from a jacket pocket. The moment he opened it, Nanaki sensed a stirring in the air, like the jittery hush before a storm. He tensed and swatted Reno's leg with his tail.

"Thunderball," he rumbled deep in his throat like a purr, hoping the warning would be lost on their foe.

But he should have yelled it, because there was no time to hatch a plan. Reno sucked in a sharp breath, just as the mayor reached into the case.

"Move!"

He shouted his warning as he flung himself to the side. Nanaki leapt the other way, toward Thorne. He jumped in front of the woman as his shimmering barrier enclosed them both, called forth with a single razor-sharp thought, and not a beat too soon. A magnificent crackle of energy shot from the mayor's hand and struck the spot they had occupied. A body behind them flew into the air, propelled by the force of Hart's lightning strike, and broke against the wall.

Reno rolled onto his feet, mag rod still in his hand. "Sleep!" he cried, but another blast of lightning lit up the room. The bolt hit Reno square in the chest and flung him backwards, straight into the wall. That wasn't the end of it; the spell continued, flaring across his contorted body in zig-zagging bolts, scorching his clothes and his face. Hart stood with his hand raised high, a manic grin fixed upon his face as he fed more electricity into Reno's chest. The sleep spell had skimmed off him like rain down a window.

The mayor's goon was charging toward them. Nanaki crouched, every muscle coiled tight and ready to pounce. He had to act, but how? If he released the barrier, he would leave the woman defenseless against the magic. He would leave _himself_ defenseless. Hart could redirect his lightning in seconds.

Reno was pinned to the wall, his face twisted beyond recognition in a rictus grin. The stench of ozone and searing flesh assaulted Nanaki's senses. _Melted bone_ , flashed through his mind. _Cooked from inside_. What could he could _do_? What could he–

A boom rang out like a clap of thunder, and the goon stumbled and fell. The mayor ducked, his spell broken, and Reno slid to the ground like a broken doll. Nanaki whipped his head around and saw Thorne, the gun smoking in her hand.

"Drop it!"

The moment she yelled, an electrical barrage struck Nanaki's barrier. Coruscating bolts surged across the surface, eating through its power with a speed and intensity he had never felt before.

"Run," he roared at the inspector. "It will not–"

A searing flash robbed him of his senses. Nanaki knew nothing, nothing at all, until he struck something hard. Pain exploded across his flank and left him blind and gasping.

When he was able to pry his eye open at last, a pair of legs had appeared in front of him. His eye followed the legs upward. Mayor Hart was smoothing back his silvery hair, though he stopped and clasped his hands together when their eyes met.

"That Turk is a one-trick 'bo, isn't he? Or I should say _was_." Hart smiled. "Perhaps some thanks are in order. Had you and your owner not bumbled into my operation downtown, it may not have occurred to me to acquire protection against something so trivial as Sleep."

He held up a hand and inspected a ring on his index finger. Sunk into a collar of golden filigree was a stone larger than the ring itself–

Nanaki blinked and refocused his gaze. No, not a stone. The trapped power of a materia glinted in sizzling streaks across the orb's smooth surface.

"Gaudy, isn't it? I don't know what they were thinking." The mayor lowered his hand and looked Nanaki over, from the tip of his tail to his nose. "You speak, don't you? How curious. Does that mean you understand me?"

He moved his hands to the small of his back and leaned down, studying Nanaki like a _specimen_. A little spark ignited inside him, a flicker in the embers of his inner fire.

"I have never seen anything like you before," the man muttered, looming over him. "How the blazes did you end up in the hands of some washed-up Turk?"

Nanaki forced his head off the ground, despite the wailing of his muscles. Thorne had landed a few paces away, her blonde mane and face stained by a wet red streak. Beyond her, Reno lay motionless in a smoking heap. Nanaki let his head slump back as his meager hope crumbled away. The lightning had torn through his barrier in seconds. No human could have survived a direct blast like that. Thorne might have lived, thanks to his barrier, but Reno…

Nanaki was on his own. He knew he had to act, and _fast_ ; but the power that had devoured his barrier had eaten the last of his strength as well. His mind felt drained, like a wrung-out cloth. And yet he refused to give up. One by one, he honed his thoughts down into a single point, and focused that point on the ice materia in his bracer.

The mayor's eyes went wide, and he drove a swift kick into Nanaki's gut. The sharp pain shattered Nanaki's focus and the magic fizzled away without harm.

"So, your barrier wasn't just some quirk of zoology! You too can use these." Hart raised his hand, the one with the thunderball ring. "How _curious_. I'd best make this quick then."

He took a step back, and Nanaki felt the mounting energy of another charge pull at the hairs of his fur. He tried to focus, but his crippled mind was too slow to respond. He snarled, calling on his feral side, willing it to come to his aid and breathe new strength into his failing body.

"Goodbye… whatever it is you are." Mayor Hart smiled thinly, then raised his hand and opened his mouth again.

 _"Silence."_

Nanaki heard the raspy whisper and saw the bewildered look that came over the mayor's face, but it wasn't until Hart started clawing at his lips that Nanaki finally understood. He twisted his head around, to see Reno slump back to the ground once more.

Nanaki stared at the Turk's still-smoking body. Reno… was _alive_?

The sound of running feet and the sudden stink of fear made something in him snap. The rage of the beast surged into his veins and washed away his pain. With a roar he leapt to his feet and sprung after the fleeing mayor. His blood thundered in his ears as he bounded after his prey, every instinct howling for vengeance, for _blood_ to revive his fallen brother – but when Nanaki knocked the man off his feet with a mighty swipe, he kept his claws hidden.

Mayor Hart sailed through the air and crashed into the corrugated steel of the hangar door. He crumpled to the ground and lay still. Nanaki leapt after him and closed his jaws around the thunderball ring. His teeth sliced through the brittle bone like butter, severing both ring and finger. He spat them out, away from the two-legged thing on the ground and toward the singed heap against the wall.

 _Reno._

Nanaki dashed back to the fallen Turk. Reno lay sprawled on the ground where he had fallen, limp and motionless. His face was covered by his messy red hair, and the smell of his scorched suit was overwhelming.

When Nanaki pricked his ears, though, he caught a pulse. It was thin and rapid, like the flutter of a butterfly's wings, but it was _there_.

A low moan sounded behind him. When he looked over his shoulder, Thorne was pushing herself up onto her knees, clutching her bleeding head.

"Find your phone," Nanaki snarled. "Call for help!"

* * *

The hangar had quieted, though it was not still. Grim-faced officers, some in uniform and others without, roamed the site with flashing cameras and translucent plastic bags. Thorne directed them here and there with a crisp order and a pointed finger. Reno was gone; strapped to a stretcher and hoisted into the back of a white van, which had rushed off with blinking lights and wailing sirens.

Nanaki could do little for Reno with his Cures, but he could ensure their battle had not been in vain. So he had stayed, standing guard over their prey. Their still-breathing prey; Mayor Hart had survived, too. Thorne had cuffed his hands behind his back – the maimed one now swaddled in a blood-stained bandage – but had made no move to take him away, even though he had regained consciousness and was moaning quietly. No matter. Nanaki would watch him until he was locked away. He owed it to his wounded brother in battle.

The steady beat of footfalls on concrete made Nanaki look over his shoulder. Two people in Turk suits were heading straight for them; one tall and dark, the other short and fair. Tseng and Elena. They passed Nanaki without a word; he grabbed one of Hart's arms, she the other. Together they dragged the mayor to his feet.

"What is the meaning of this?" Hart stuttered weakly, once again in control of his voice. "Where are you taking me?"

His questions were ignored. It may have served him right, but Nanaki wanted to know the answers, too.

"What will you do with this man?"

Tseng finally looked at him with those dark, shrewd eyes of his. Nanaki stared back.

"You may follow, if you wish," was all the man said.

The Turks jostled the mayor toward an office in the back, paying no mind to his threats and stuttered pleas. Nanaki glanced over at Thorne. As soon as their eyes met, she averted her whole face.

The trio was almost at the door. With an uneasy flick of his tail, Nanaki trotted after them.

The room smelled of dusty paper, peppered with the sting of chemicals Nanaki couldn't name. A single ceiling lamp cast a cone of sickly light; the Turks shoved the mayor to his knees in the center of it. Nanaki remained near the door, four paws firm and steady on the floor, his ears swiveling to and fro.

Someone else was here in the room, lingering in the shadows beyond the light. As Nanaki drew another deep breath, he tasted an oily stink he knew too well: Geostigma.

Elena took up position behind the mayor as Tseng stepped into that darkness. Moments later, a pair of legs in white rolled into view; pale hands on the armrests of a wheelchair; a face nearly as pallid as the bandages that bound its forehead and swathed its eye.

"P-president Shinra," Mayor Hart stammered.

"You remember me. Good."

Rufus Shinra spoke without hurry or emotion, but Nanaki wasn't fooled. It was the patience of a viper preparing to strike.

"You have made quite a mark upon your city, Mayor. There must be dozens dead by now. Maybe hundreds." Shinra's hands tightened around the armrests as he leaned forward. "And now I hear you nearly murdered one of my Turks. You leave me no choice but to take this… personally."

The man wore too many layers for an accurate assessment of the state of his body, but Nanaki did not miss the tremble in his arm and the faint hiss as he let himself settle back into his chair again. Rufus Shinra's illness had progressed far. What surprised Nanaki more was that the man was alive at all. Most succumbed to the disease in weeks or months, but as far as Nanaki knew, Rufus Shinra's battle with it would soon be counted in years.

"According to the letter of the law," Shinra continued, still addressing the kneeling man in front of him, "you should be tried, convicted and sent to prison for your crimes. That is not a certainty, though, is it? For men like you and I, the law tends to be exceedingly… pliant. Judges and juries are so fallible, after all. A man in your position must have contacts and leverage, not to mention funds ferreted away for a rainy day."

"Is that what you want? Gil?" Hart gave a shrill laugh. "Is a Shinra begging _me_ for gil?"

"I'm afraid you have it all wrong, Mayor Hart. I am merely here to make sure justice is done."

He glanced at Tseng, who produced a pair of vinyl gloves from his pocket and pulled them on. He plucked something from the back of the wheelchair; when he stepped up beside Rufus, Nanaki saw that it was a simple, white bowl. Tseng held it level with the armrest of the wheelchair.

"You see, it's not the deaths that bring me here in person today, or the cruel and unnecessary suffering of your citizens. No, it's something far more contemptible." Rufus raised his hand and curled it into a fist over the bowl. "It's false hope."

The president squeezed his fist so tight it trembled, until a black and oily liquid oozed through the bruise on the back of his hand and trickled down. As the first droplets struck the bowl, a whimper broke the breathless silence. Rufus Shinra looked down at the mayor, smiling coldly.

"Ah, now you understand."

His voice had become unsteady, and with a gasp he let his hand slump to the armrest. Tseng brought out a pair of clear face shields and handed the other to Elena, who placed it over her head. Hart's breaths grew shallower and shallower as he looked from her to Tseng and down to the white bowl in the Turk's hand.

"No, you can't do this. You can't do this to me!"

"Oh, I most certainly can," Rufus said, his voice icier than the northern wind. "And I will."

Nanaki shifted his weight from paw to paw, troubled by what he was about to witness, but he did not raise his voice. It was not his place to meddle. And why would he? This was no different in intent from the exile used by his people. A harsh measure meant for the harshest of crimes – but one that came with the possibility of survival and the slim hope of redemption, if one fought hard enough to earn it.

Elena wound one arm around the mayor's head and grabbed his jaw with the other, forcing his mouth open. Nanaki lowered his gaze as Tseng brought the bowl to the man's face and tilted it forward. Hart's cuffed hands opened and closed in jerking spasms as he coughed and choked. Nanaki kept his eye on them until they went still, fingers splayed and curled like claws.

Tseng stepped back and returned the empty bowl to its hidden container behind the wheelchair. Elena had released her hold on the man's head, but she kept his face angled toward Rufus Shinra with a fist in his wispy gray hair.

"You sick…" Hart sputtered out another wet cough. "Bastard!"

"Now, now, no need to look so glum. You could always try one of those experimental cures people are churning out these days." Rufus smiled.

Hart's face contorted in a grimace, made all the uglier by the oily filth that clung to his lips and teeth.

"You–"

Whatever he had intended to say was cut off by a choked scream. His eyes rolled up as his body bent backwards in a rigid arch. Elena let go of the man and let him fall to the floor.

As the Turks removed their protective clothing, Rufus Shinra watched Hart convulse upon the ground. Not a single muscle moved on his impassive face, until he glanced over at Nanaki. Rufus seemed to study him, too, then gave him a slight smile that only moved the corners of his lips.

"Do you object, Master Nanaki?"

The honorific caught Nanaki off guard almost as much as the mention of his real name. He had not even known Shinra was aware of it.

"The punishment is severe... but so are his crimes. I hold no objections."

Shinra bowed his head, though Nanaki suspected it had less to do with acknowledgement and more with the ravages of his illness. Each breath the man drew was more labored than the last.

"We're done here," Rufus Shinra snapped to his Turks. As he looked back at Hart's writhing body, his lip curled. "Remove this filth from my sight."


	20. What Lies Ahead

**20\. What Lies Ahead**

* * *

Nanaki arrived at the hospital just after sunrise, dropped off by Rude. The corridors were quiet at this hour; he only passed a handful of humans on his way. They all stared, more or less openly, but none tried to stop him. Perhaps the Turks, or Dr. Uzuki, had instructed them to let him pass.

The bald Turk had given him the floor and room number. Once Nanaki reached his destination, he nudged the door open and poked his head through for a peek. A weary-looking Reno lay in the room's single bed; his face was turned away from the door, but he was easily identified by the red stream of hair that flowed across the pillow. With a twinge of sadness, Nanaki realized that it was shorter than before. A thin tube fed a transparent liquid into Reno's hand from a suspended bag, but otherwise he appeared blissfully free of the beeping contraptions doctors were so keen on hooking up to their patients.

Reno was not alone; Tess was bent over the side of the bed, her head resting on her folded arms. Judging by her slow and steady breaths, she was fast asleep.

As Nanaki pushed into the room, Reno glanced over and raised a finger to his lips. He slunk closer without a sound, his tail curved under his body to keep the light out of her eyes. Reno gazed at Tess and brushed some wayward locks out of her face.

"Found her like this when I woke up," he mumbled under his breath, then shook his head with half a smile. "She's gonna be sore, sleeping like this."

Nanaki peeked around the bed. She was sitting in a chair, with her upper body slumped onto the mattress.

"Then perhaps you should wake her," he murmured as he padded to the other side of the bed, across from her sleeping form.

"Nah, she has trouble sleeping. A bit of shuteye will do her good, even if she's gotta pay for it with a stiff neck." He moved his hand to her back, letting it settle between her shoulders, and looked up at Nanaki. "So... What's up?"

His face was almost as white as the walls around them, except for the deep bruises under his eyes, and his voice was little more than a scratchy whisper in his throat. Nanaki sensed no pain, but Reno hadn't lifted his head off the pillow, and his limbs lay limp and heavy on the bed. Nanaki had never seen him so still.

"Not you, clearly."

"Don't get your hopes up, Furball. I'll be fine… pretty much. Just gotta take it easy and stay hooked up to this heart monitor thing for twenty-four hours." He tilted his chin toward some kind of device, about the size of a pocket book, that hung from a strap around his neck. A tangle of wires snaked up to the collar of his corn-blue hospital gown and disappeared underneath the fabric.

With a heavy sigh, Reno let his head sink deeper into his pillow.

"That's the part that sucks the most if you ask me. Linnie won't let me sneak out a single minute too early, either." Reno lolled his head sideways, just enough to give Nanaki a tired grin. "Says it's the least I gotta do for her, when I drag her outta bed at two in the morning to patch up my sorry zapped ass."

"More like cooked ass."

"Heh, guess so." He grimaced as he carefully rolled one of his shoulders. "Gotta admit I've never been hit that hard before. Stings a bit, yo."

"And I must admit I did not think you would get up again." Nanaki slashed a fiery line through the air with his tail. "The simple protection on Isa's ring could not have saved you from a blast like that."

"Not on its own, no. Good thing I got a knack for the zappy stuff, huh? Turk suit helps, too."

Nanaki had come across creatures with an affinity before, enabling them to wield a certain kind of magic without materia – or resist its effects. No wonder this one was always so eager to play with his mag rod.

"It is a good thing, indeed."

Reno's chuckle was more like a wheeze in his throat.

"Keep saying things like that, Furball, and you're gonna make me think you like me after all."

Nanaki tipped his ears forward. "I shall watch my words, then."

Reno's eyes fell shut, a faint smile lingering on his pale lips. Nanaki had begun to wonder if he should take his leave and let the man rest, when Reno sighed deeply and opened them again.

"Everything's pretty blurry after I got zapped. Mind filling me in?"

He listened quietly, staring up at the ceiling with heavy-lidded eyes, as Nanaki went through it all. Even facial expressions seemed like too much of an effort for Reno now, though the punishment that Rufus Shinra had meted out to Mayor Hart was met with a wry smirk.

"Gotta hand it to that devious bastard. He sure knows how to make people pay." As he glanced at the woman sleeping by his side, his smile turned into a frown. "Don't tell her, though, okay? It'll just make her upset. Ain't something she needs to know, anyway."

"You keep many secrets from her."

Reno turned his frown on Nanaki.

"It ain't like that, okay? Shit like this is Turk business. It's better if she don't know anything about it. Hell, I wish _I_ didn't know half the things I do."

"She might not agree."

Reno sighed and was silent a while.

"I did tell her about the other thing, though. The thing you sniffed out the other day, 'bout me, remember?"

Nanaki had to think. "Your… lack of selectivity?"

Reno arched an eyebrow.

"Well, fuck you too, Furball. For the record, I'm plenty _selective_. I just don't _select_ based on what someone's got in their pants, is all."

"Noted." The man didn't appear upset, so Nanaki tilted his ears forward. "Apologies for my poorly 'selected' words."

"Heh, sure. Don't worry about it." He affirmed it with half a smile, which spread to a grin as he gazed down at Tess. "I told her that night at the safehouse. She didn't seem surprised. We talked for a while, and then she said…" He paused, swallowed. "She said she loves me."

As soon as he had whispered it he giggled, pitched high with disbelief.

Nanaki's tail swished in a tight figure eight. Suddenly he felt very responsible for the advice he had given her.

"What did you reply?"

"Fuck, I don't even know. Knowing me it had to be something dumb, like 'huh?' or 'oh shit'." Reno laughed again. "But then I found my brain again, and…" He smiled and stroked her hair. "I guess I told her I love her too."

Nanaki let out his breath.

"It sounds like your secrets are a problem for _you,_ more than they are for others."

"Heh. Maybe. It's just… _hard_ , y'know? Used to be a bad thing, letting someone this close. Better if people outside the Turks didn't know too much. Better for everyone."

Nanaki had nothing to add, and Reno fell into another contemplative silence. His fingers drew gentle circles on Tess's back as he gazed at her face, soft with deep sleep. Eventually he cleared his throat and looked over at Nanaki again.

"Anyway. What happened next?"

"Excuse me?"

"Last night, after Hart got what was coming to him. What then?"

It took Nanaki a few beats to readjust and return his mind to the events of the previous night.

"I spent the time until dawn making sure we had seized all of the remaining Glimmer. I paired up with one of your fellow Turks for it. The hairless one."

"Rude, huh? Hope the guy didn't give you too much trouble."

"On the contrary, I prefer your partner. He is easy to read."

Reno laughed, sounding more like his usual self.

"That's gotta be the first time anyone's said that about Rude, yo."

He turned away from Nanaki as Tess raised her head, blinking owlishly against the light. Reno smiled and gave her shoulder a small squeeze.

"Hey there, sleepyhead."

She yawned, pushing herself up as she rubbed her eyes.

"We have got to stop meeting like this," she mumbled.

"I hear ya." He chuckled and pulled her closer. "C'mere, babe."

As their lips met, Nanaki focused intently upon a silk screen that stood half-folded near the door. Five-fingered leaves in two shades of green were scattered across the fabric; he counted twelve of them before Tess broke the kiss. She didn't pull back very far, though, for when Nanaki looked back at them, she was resting her forehead against Reno's, her hand cupped over his on the bed. Their eyes were closed and neither of them moved. Nanaki was just about to return to his counting when she drew away and pinned the man on the bed with a firm stare.

"I thought you promised not to get hurt."

"Hey, I promised not to get stabbed or shot," Reno protested with a weak smile. "Ain't my fault that asshole pulled materia on me."

She narrowed her eyes. "Time to add materia to the list, then."

"Yes, ma'am."

Nanaki expected Reno to punctuate his reply with a roll of the eyes, but he just smiled up at her. Her scowl melted away, and she dipped her head down for another kiss. Nanaki counted twenty-two leaves before she straightened back up.

"You're gonna mess this thing up, baby." Reno tapped the device hanging from his neck.

"I'll take that as a compliment." She yawned again, then gave a quiet chuckle. "Sorry. Wanted to be here when you woke up, but that didn't go exactly according to plan."

"Sure it did. Ain't like you vanish when you fall asleep, y'know."

"I hope I didn't snore, at least."

"Don't worry, babe. I'm pretty sure you didn't wake anyone outside this floor." He laughed when she shot him a dirty look. "Kidding, baby. Just kidding."

"Recovered enough to be a jerk, huh?" she retorted with half a smile. "I guess I'll count that as a good sign." She turned her attention to Nanaki, leaning over the bed for a better look. "How about you? All limbs still attached and functional, I hope?"

"All paws present and accounted for," he reported, tipping his ears forward. "But it is time for me to take my leave." He bowed his head at her, then at Reno. "I wish you a quick recovery."

"Don't leave town without a goodbye, yeah?" Reno said.

"I will not." He drew back his lips in a smile. "I am still waiting for that shaken milk you promised me, after all."

* * *

Nanaki and Reno had the rooftop to themselves. The barren plateau of brick and concrete belonged to the building with the Turk safehouse, and offered a wide view of Edge's un-scenic eastern side. Gusts of wind whistled through the alleys and the husks of buildings in their final stages of being born, but the breeze did not bother the two of them, sheltered as they were by the wall of the rooftop access at their backs. The air barely moved in their little pocket of stillness, which allowed scents to settle and linger. The most interesting ones came from the tall cardboard cup in Reno's hand, teasing Nanaki's nose with the sparkling scent of some Costan fruit whose name he couldn't remember.

The scent from his own cardboard cup was sweetly familiar. Holding it like a human was out of the question, so Nanaki had lain down and wedged his vanilla milkshake between his front paws. Using the straw had required a bit more trial and error, but he had found his rhythm at last. The downside was a more obstructed view, but he could still see Edge's forest of construction cranes and the skeletal beginnings of the buildings they tended.

Having milkshakes with a Turk, like a pair of old friends. Who would ever have thought?

Were they friends? Nanaki reflected on the question as he thought back on the adventures of these recent days. Not exactly _friends_ yet, perhaps… But they had come far from the enemies they had once been.

"The CID have rounded up their investigation," Reno said. "Seeing how Thorne let me get fried half to death on her watch and all," he gave Nanaki a wink, "I managed to sweet-talk her into giving me the highlights. Turns out the good ol' mayor had a nice lil' haul of materia stashed away in his luggage."

Nanaki's ears perked up. "The materia from the collector?"

The man nodded, mid-slurp from his milkshake.

"From that Golden Orb place, too," he added once he had swallowed his mouthful. "Some of it, anyway. Seems Hart was always fixing to sell the rare pieces overseas, but then his lil' misfit crew ran out of the broken Midgar stuff and started grinding up everything they got their hands on, just to keep their Glimmer operation going."

"Mayor Hart could not have been happy to discover this."

"Yup, and even less happy 'bout the Kalm fuckup."

"You mean the murder of the collector?"

"Uh huh." Reno paused for another sip of milkshake. "Hell, just robbing her would've been bad enough. It's one thing to knock over black market shops in Edge, but when you're fucking with the peaceful civilians in Kalm, you draw way too much attention."

Nanaki gave it some thought over a mouthful of his drink, trying to see it from the human point of view.

"And so the mayor wanted the Wester brothers dead… to cut the trail short?"

"Sounds that way. But once you and me started poking around… Well, now he had even more loose ends to deal with."

"With lightning magic? That seems… unwise."

"Sends a pretty clear message to those in the know, though, don't it?" Reno shrugged. "My guess is Hart was gonna make someone take the fall for the whole thing, only we kept pushing and he ran outta time. So he figured he'd cut and run, ship it all to Costa where people still have the gil for the good stuff."

"And yet with all this 'good stuff', there is still no sign of the materia I seek?"

With a sigh, Reno shook his head. "Sorry, Furball, no luck there. Guess it got ground up before Hart could put a stop to it."

"I see."

The fire of Nanaki's hope went cold. Its ashes were bitter on his tongue.

"But," Reno continued, drawing out the word, "Thorne says Hart also had a list of names on him. The CID thinks it's those potential buyers, and if that's true… Well, chances are some of 'em wanna add to their collection, and one of those collections might have what you're looking for. If and when I manage to charm that list off of someone, I'll hand it over." He shrugged. "It's a long shot… but might be worth checking out."

"Thank you," Nanaki said, though he was unable to muster much enthusiasm. While he appreciated the gesture, it sounded like the kind of detective work that would be far too troublesome for one of his kind.

"Chin up, Furball. Can't have been the last one in the world, yo."

He was probably right, Nanaki mused, yet it was slim comfort. The prospect of having to begin his hunt anew was daunting no matter how he looked at it. The Stigma did not tire and stop like prey, and every dead-end left him further and further behind.

"Fitz got promoted the other day, did she tell ya that?" Reno paused for another sip of his drink. "Project lead. Reports directly to the Prez now."

Surprised, Nanaki looked up from his milkshake. The man's voice revealed very little of his thoughts, but his body was an open book.

"You are not pleased by this."

Reno surveyed the scenery, but the taut line of his jaw suggested his thoughts were elsewhere.

"He had the previous lead killed," he finally said. "Didn't use one of us Turks, though. Hell, he won't even admit to it, but we all know what went down."

His voice was thoughtful, more than anything else. Nanaki didn't know what to make of it.

"Why?"

"Didn't like Kilmister's results, I guess. Ain't gonna argue with that, the guy was fucking useless. Spent most of his time hyped up to his eyeballs. I gotta wonder, though…"

"Wonder _what_?" Nanaki prodded. Why did the man insist on such a roundabout manner of speech?

"Not using a Turk for the job, then putting Fitz in the guy's place... Can't help thinking the Prez is telling us something."

Reno's train of thought was too convoluted, too _human_ for Nanaki to follow. He read the language of his body instead.

"You believe it is a threat," he concluded.

A strange look crossed Reno's face, as if it was trying to accommodate several thoughts at once.

"Hell… who knows," he sighed, raking his fingers through his hair. "Maybe he was sick of the asshole and wanted someone who actually does their job right. Maybe he's just fucking with my head after that lil' stunt I pulled. But, just _maybe_ …"

"Why would he threaten one who is already willing to help?"

"The guy's running low on time." Reno shrugged. "Bound to make anyone antsy."

Nanaki studied the Turk as he reflected upon his words. Reno's scent betrayed no sign of pain and he was not as deathly pale as he had been in the hospital, but his eyes were still shadowed and weary. He had donned his Turk suit and gone back to work straight from the hospital; or so Tess had told Nanaki, her voice tight with irritation. It seemed Rufus Shinra was pushing both his Turks and his scientists to their limits – and beyond, in certain cases.

The dregs of Reno's milkshake rattled through his straw. He breathed out a slow sigh and smacked his lips.

"So… What's next for ya?"

"I have not yet decided." It wasn't entirely true. Nanaki was planning to track down Cloud Strife and pick through the materia that AVALANCHE had amassed, but that wasn't something Shinra and the Turks needed to know.

"Well, if you ain't in a hurry, maybe you could do me a favor. Stick around for a bit, yeah?"

Nanaki eyed him, surprised by the request.

"Why?"

"Don't like leaving Fitz by herself. Not when the Prez is being a dick, yo."

"Will you not... 'stick around'?"

Reno chuckled.

"I'm gonna be too busy dancing to the Prez's tune. Sounds like I'll be flying way up north for a pickup soon. Might take a few days. She could use the company."

"What interests Shinra in the north?"

Reno glanced at him, raising the corner of his mouth.

"Wouldn't you like to know, kitty cat."

Nanaki couldn't help but tilt his ears forward in amusement as wry as the man's smile. Not exactly friends, no… But he was happy to grant the favor that Reno asked. A few days in the Healen mountains would be a welcome respite, after all the excitement on Edge's streets – and under them. And, if Nanaki was honest, he was in no hurry to resume his lonesome travels. A few more days of friendly company would do him good.

Reno finished his milkshake with one last loud slurp.

"Well, break's over. See you around, Furball."

He touched two fingers to his temple in salutation, then sauntered around the corner of the rooftop access. Nanaki heard the door open and close, and then he was alone.

Nanaki surveyed the cityscape below. It no longer reeked, like it had on the day of his arrival. Perhaps he was too high up to properly experience its smell – or perhaps his nose had grown accustomed to it. What else might he grow accustomed to? The city's glittering towers of metal, concrete, and glass? Its unpredictable humans?

He could certainly get accustomed to vanilla milkshakes, he mused as he slurped another mouthful through the straw. As for the rest… time would tell.

* * *

 **A/N** :

Aaaand here we are, at the end. After three years of planning, drafting, re-drafting, and editing this story, it feels so damn good to have reached this point at last.

Special thanks to:

\- my long-suffering beta reader **Mr. Stompy**

\- the one and only **jbaillier** for pointing me to the gruesome facts of electrical burns

\- **Jeemh** for the GORGEOUS fanart (search Tumblr or AO3 for the username)

\- **YOU** for reading the whole darn thing :D

\- especially you wonderful people who took the time to comment, favorite & follow!

Thanks so much, everyone! You rock!


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